For McIlroy, this FedEx Cup win was about righting some wrongs

When K.H. Lee looks back to the starting point of his golf journey, he can only marvel at how a twist of fate which saw him learn the game with a Ted Lasso-type swing coach has since led him to stardom on the PGA TOUR. In May, Lee became the eighth and latest Korean winner on TOUR following his triumph at the AT&T Byron Nelson which cemented his rise to prominence. And it all began with an initial foray to the local driving range as a 13-year-old trying to lose weight following an initial tinker as a shot put athlete. “My dad had a restaurant and next door was a driving range. I followed him for fun and eventually took lessons. My main motive was to go there and lose weight, but I never lost any weight,” laughed Lee, who tipped the scales at 212 pounds during his teens. After being bitten by the golf bug, Lee found encouragement through the uplifting and inspirational ways of a local golf pro, whose teaching style can be likened to Ted Lasso, the fictional soccer coach starring in the self-titled sports comedy-drama streaming TV series. “The reason I continued was the pro who was teaching juniors, and he kept giving me positive feedback about my swing. He was very encouraging and complimented me often and I felt good. That kept me going in golf and he bragged to others about me, and it made me work hard. I remember my mother was a violin teacher and she tried to teach me which did not go well. When she asked me to practice a piece 10 times, I haphazardly did it without any concentration. Golf was different. It was fun and I could go on for hours.” Within a few years, Lee’s exceptional talents saw him being part of the gold medal Korean Team at the 2010 Asian Games in China, which exempts him from mandatory military service. He turned professional soon after and amassed two victories each on the Korean Tour and Japan Golf Tour from between 2012 to 2016. He subsequently took the big leap of faith to America and qualified for the Korn Ferry Tour in 2016 and two years later, three runner-up results saw him secure his dream PGA TOUR card which Lee cherishes, largely due to the sacrifices and support of his parents through the years. “Like everyone else, my parents sacrificed a lot. They supported me with everything. They never told me to quit even when my game was not going well. My father wanted to be a baseball player, but his parents were against it. Since he could not do what he wanted, he decided to support his son, me,” said Lee, who is the only child. “He encouraged me and helped in every way possible. He was there since the beginning. We would go abroad to practice every winter and he was my chauffer to tournaments. When my father was with me on the Korn Ferry Tour, he had a difficult time with the food. It was difficult to find a decent Korean or Asian restaurant in the countryside and I remember he had his tooth pulled out during one trip! They gave me everything they could, and I cannot sufficiently show my appreciation.” Lee is now one the most jovial golfers on the PGA TOUR, and joked during an interview that he had two big goals in life – to become the No. 1 player in the world and the sexiest golfer alive. “When I won in May, my goals went viral as many golfers were amused by this story,” he said. “Being sexy means to be a muscular guy. It’s in my dream but not quite possible in reality. I want to be muscular, but I enjoy eating so much. For example, I try not to eat dinner if I have a big lunch, but when dinner time comes, I am usually hungry again. I will work out hard, but I will eat hard as well.” With this week’s THE CJ CUP @ SUMMIT in Las Vegas being a “home” game for Lee and the other Koreans in the field – the tournament is being played outside its traditional home in Korea for the second straight year due to the pandemic – Lee hopes to hit the jackpot again to get his 2021-22 Season going. “Last season was the best and I couldn’t be more ecstatic. It was my best year on the golf course, and we had a baby,” said Lee, who welcomed the arrival of his first child, a baby girl named Celine Yuna Lee, in July with wife, Joo Yeon Yu. “I’m looking forward to the new season, and the goal will be to have another victory and getting myself into the top-50 in the world. Playing for Korea, representing the International Team in the Presidents Cup next year would also be a huge ambition. I’m trying to focus on winning and if I can get into the top-50, it would probably assure me of a spot in the Presidents Cup. I would be honored beyond measure to represent my country,” added the Korean, who finished 31st on the FedExCup standings last season.

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PUERTO VALLARTA, Mexico — Jon Rahm is the biggest star in the Mexico Open at Vidanta and he lived up to his billing Thursday, chipping in for birdie and making a late eagle putt for a 7-under 64 and a six-way share of the lead in the first round. RELATED: Leaderboard | Jon Rahm returns to roots in opening 64 at Mexico Open at Vidanta Jonathan Byrd, Brendon Todd, Trey Mullinax and Monday qualifier Bryson Nimmer also were at 64 from the morning wave. Nimmer played his final five holes in 5 under, including a bunker shot he holed out for eagle on the par-5 sixth hole. Kurt Kitayama faced the strength of the afternoon wind and made nine birdies, getting up-and-down from behind the green on the par-5 18th for his 64. The Mexico Open is part of the PGA TOUR schedule and inherits the history of a national open that dates to 1944. It takes the place of the World Golf Championships-Mexico Championship that was at Chapultepec in Mexico City for four years through 2020. Rahm knew very little about the Vidanta Vallarta course except that he felt comfortable off the tee, and it showed. The Spaniard missed only one fairway, and three greens. He opened with a 15-foot birdie putt on the par-5 12th hole, but it was the chip-in from 30 feet on the 13th that really got him going. He had to save par on the 10th and 11th holes at the start of his round. “I hadn’t hit my best irons shots early on,” Rahm said. “Chipped that one in from an uncomfortable lie and a tough one. That was a huge bonus. I think a lot of people obviously would look at the eagle on 7, but that one early on was a huge booster.” The eagle on the 311-yard seventh hole was set up by a big drive to the middle of the green on the par 4 and a 40-foot putt that gave him a share of the lead. Rahm also made birdie on each of the three par 5s on the back nine, and perhaps his finest shot was his approach from 206 yards to just inside 4 feet for birdie on the par-4 fourth. Nimmer finished with a blaze of good shots. After a 12-foot birdie putt on the par-3 fifth, he holed out for eagle, pitched to 2 feet on the reachable seventh and made a 12-foot birdie putt on the par-3 ninth to close out his round. Aaron Rai, Aaron Wise, Sahith Theegala and Scott Brown were at 65. Rai and Theegala could use top finishes this week to move up in PGA Championship points and try to secure a spot at Southern Hills in three weeks. Next week is the final event for players to qualify in points, which is PGA TOUR earnings. Rahm and Abraham Ancer (71) are the only players from the top 20 in the world at the Mexico Open. That allowed for players like Byrd, who has status as a past champion, to get in. He improved his status with a pair of cuts made in the fall. He tied for ninth at Pebble Beach, which got him into the Waste Management Phoenix Open. Byrd has managed to get in 10 tournaments so far, and feels he is getting some momentum. “I started the year thinking I might get in 15, looks like I might get in more like 20. I’m just happy to have starts,” Byrd said. “And my game’s good, so trying to stay aggressive and see what I can make of it.” Byrd went out in 29 and reached 7 under for the round with a birdie on the par-5 12th. He added a bogey and a birdie the rest of the way. Patrick Reed won the WGC-Mexico Championship at Chapultepec two years ago. He had six birdies in his round of 68, leaving him three shots behind. The wind off the Pacific began to blow as Rahm and other starters had an hour or so to go in their rounds, so the Spaniard will have that to contend with on Friday. “We had no wind for 13, 14 holes. It’s very, very scorable,” Rahm said. “Once the wind starts going 20, 30 miles an hour, this golf course starts showing some teeth.”

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SAINT-QUENTIN-EN-YVELINES, France — Europe’s latest Ryder Cup sensation is called “Moliwood,” and what a show Francesco Molinari and Tommy Fleetwood produced at the Ryder Cup on Saturday. And now for the final act. Molinari and Fleetwood became the first European tandem to win all four matches, leading their team to the brink of regaining the Ryder Cup from an American team that had to rally just to keep the score close. Tiger Woods hasn’t won any of his three matches. Phil Mickelson didn’t even play. Europe filled the board with blue in the morning, eventually winning three of the four matches in fourballs for its largest three-session lead in 14 years. It held on in foursomes, with Henrik Stenson delivering clutch putts in the only match that was close. At the end of two days, Europe had a 10-6 lead. The score should sound familiar. That’s the same deficit Europe faced in 2012 at Medinah when it produced the largest comeback on foreign soil. The Americans have never made up that much ground away from home, though they were the first to win after trailing 10-6, at Brookline in 1999 when they front-loaded the Sunday lineup with their biggest stars. And that was on the mind of European captain Thomas Bjorn, even as he was drowned out by thousands of fans using what was left of their voices to sing, “Ole, ole, ole, ole,” the European anthem for these matches that Americans have heard far too often. “I’ve seen too many times what the singles game does,” Bjorn said. “We used a lot of energy these days. We go ahead tomorrow and focus on what’s ahead and not what’s done.” Even so, he couldn’t contain a smile. Europe brought five rookies to Le Golf National who sure didn’t seem like them — Alex Noren and Fleetwood were the last two French Open champions on the Albatross Course — and certainly didn’t play like them. “We’re really, really, really happy with how it’s gone these past two days,” Bjorn said. If not for Jordan Spieth and Justin Thomas, the Americans might really be in trouble. They pulled ahead in a tight fourballs match to beat Ian Poulter and Jon Rahm for the lone American point in the morning that prevented Europe from a second straight sweep of a team session. They rallied from an early deficit against Poulter and Rory McIlroy in foursomes, with both delivering key shots and big putts. With four birdies over their last five holes, they won 4 and 3. “They had a six-point lead, and now it’s four,” Spieth said. “So we are carrying that as a little bit of momentum, I guess. Early wins tomorrow go a long way.” Mickelson will have to shake off some rust. He hasn’t played since Friday in a foursomes loss that lasted only 14 holes. U.S. captain Jim Furyk said he would shake up the order for Saturday afternoon foursomes, and that meant keeping Lefty on the bench. It was the second time in as many Ryder Cups in Europe that Mickelson, who holds the Ryder Cup record with 12 appearances, did not play on Saturday. Woods played twice, and at times it looked as though he were playing by himself. Patrick Reed went from “Captain America” to looking more like “Private Patrick,” taking himself out of holes in the fourballs session with too many shots into the gnarly rough, in the water and one out-of-bounds. That wasn’t enough to contend against “Moliwood.” The fourballs match was all square until Molinari ran off three straight birdies. The foursomes match was never close, as Fleetwood delivered big putts to win holes, each time turning to the crowd in a crouch, dropping both arms and pumping them wildly. They were 5 up at the turn over Woods and DeChambeau, and a brief rally only delayed the inevitable. Most peculiar about the matches in this Ryder Cup is that only two of the 16 matches have reached the 18th hole, and each match has been won outright. Woods has failed to win seven consecutive matches, dating to his singles victory against Molinari in Wales in 2010. Woods, coming off an inspiring victory at the Tour Championship for his first title since his litany of back surgeries, has looked flat in the Paris suburbs. He hasn’t had much help, but he also missed key putts around the turn that allowed Europe to build a big lead. “Everything feels pretty good,” Woods said. “Just pretty (ticked) off, the fact that I lost three matches and didn’t feel like I played poorly. That’s the frustrating thing about match play. We ran against two guys that were both playing well.” The rest of the Europe wasn’t too shabby.

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