Aussies of the month: Minjee and Min Woo Lee
Australian golf power siblings Minjee and Min Woo Lee deserve a huge congratulations for hosting a tournament at their beloved childhood home course, Royal Fremantle Golf Club, while back in Australia in January. The Webex Players Series Perth was a great success at Royal Fremantle, where fellow West Australian Jordan Doull claimed victory. That the Lee siblings hosted an event was a huge boost for WA golf given the duo played on the Australian golf teams at the Paris Olympics last August. Min Woo also debuted on the International team at the PGA Tour’s Presidents Cup in September.
Now 28 and with two major championship titles among 10 career LPGA Tour wins, Minjee said it was fulfilling to give back to Australian golf. “It’s a real privilege for us to be able to host, especially in our home state and obviously at our home club, Royal Fremantle,” she said. “I’ve been here since I was 8 years old, so for a tournament like the Webex Players Series to come to Royal Fremantle is a really big deal.”
Min Woo – now 26 and playing in the US on the PGA Tour and with three DP World Tour victories under his belt – was 14 when he teed up at the 2012 WA Open as an amateur. “We were lucky enough to play all the professional events before we turned pro and have that experience before we got to the big stage,” he said. “That helped get us to where we are now.”
Min Woo completed plenty of co-hosting duties in Fremantle, such as walk-and-talk interviews, despite not playing the event.
The Webex Junior Players Series Perth was won by Krishav Sheth while Steve Alderson earned a 10-shot win in the Webex All Abilities Players Series.
Golfers in the news
A perfect match: A married couple for 45 years, John and Gillian Donald, both 13-handicappers from Gardiners Run Golf Club in Melbourne, faced a truly unique challenge: they qualified to play against each other in the Seniors Championship after each got through three rounds of matchplay to reach the final. Gillian prevailed over John, 3&2. It left golf fans wondering if any married couple at an Australian golf club had ever squared off in a club championship matchplay final. “We were on opposite sides of the draw. We just thought, There’s no way we’ll play each other,” Gillian said. In the final, John rallied after he fell 4 down through nine, eventually reducing the deficit to two holes through 15, but Gillian responded with a 12-foot par putt on the 16th to win the match. “When I actually won, I couldn’t really celebrate it,” she said. “I just felt bad that I beat him.”
Qualifying school success: New South Wales tour pro Kelsey Bennett capped a superb year on the feeder tour to the Ladies European Tour (LET) by earning a promotion to the top flight via qualifying school. Bennett played the LET Access Series in 2024 and won the Hauts de France Pas de Calais Golf Open in September. At qualifying school, which was held over five rounds in Morocco, the top 20 finishers secured cards on the LET for 2025. Bennett finished strong and was T-19, good enough for an LET promotion. Fellow Australians Maddison Hinson-Tolchard (25th), Justice Bosio (57th) and Belinda Ji (101st) finished outside the top 20. The LET will co-sanction three consecutive tournaments here this year, including the Australian WPGA Championship at Sanctuary Cove in March.
On the men’s side, Asian Tour Qualifying School was held recently in Thailand. Jack Thompson finished T-4 and was the best of four Australians who secured Asian Tour cards for the 2025, including Todd Sinnott, Lawry Flynn and Brett Rankin.
Masters of Australian golf courses: South Korea’s Hyojin Yang and American Ian Gilligan beat a host of star Australian golfers at Southern Golf Club in Melbourne to each claim the Australian Master of the Amateurs title. Gilligan, 21, is a rising star in US college golf as a senior at the University of Florida. He drained a 30-foot birdie putt on the 72nd hole to win the men’s championship over another US college golfer, Queensland’s Kai Komulainen, who plays at the University of Tennessee. Yang, 17, is from Jeju Island in Korea and made seven straight pars on the closing stretch to win the women’s title from NSW star Ella Scaysbrook.
Birdie of the month
A tick for longevity
A milestone awaits a long-standing Melbourne golf trip when the Micks Masons Golf Society celebrates its 60th consecutive annual pilgrimage to Cobram Barooga [left] on the Murray River this October. The group was formed at a football club in the south-east suburb of Frankston in 1965. For the 60th time, the group will play both courses at Cobram Barooga Golf Club and the two layouts at Tocumwal Country Club over four days.
Bogey of the month
Davis’ error
Usually, we reserve the Bogey of The Month for an error in Australian golf that needs to be called out, but for this edition we are nominating something a little different: a literal bogey that we believe was the dropped shot of the month. That bogey belonged to our own Cameron Davis, as well as his playing partner in the final round at The Sentry tournament, Will Zalatoris, after a rules snafu at the Kapalua Plantation course on the Hawaiian island of Maui.
Davis and Zalatoris were the unfortunate victims of a wrong-ball mix-up when they played each other’s golf ball from in front of the green at the par-5 15th. When the pair realised their errors on the green, both returned to play from the correct spot of their third shot – only they were taking their fifth stroke instead of their third, according to the Rules of Golf.
Davis and Zalatoris both got up and down for a bogey 6 given they were assessed a two-stroke penalty under Rule 6.3c (playing the wrong ball in a strokeplay competition). Zalatoris’ eventual prizemoney from Kapalua was $US163,333 (about $A262,060) for finishing T-26, while Davis was T-13 and he collected $US410,000 (about $A657,830). Had the pair not been penalised, they would have moved up to T-15 and fifth, respectively – earning $US283,200 and $US715,625. Davis’ rules infraction cost him $US306,625 (about $A488,000).
Images: davis: sarah stier/getty images • cobram barooga: gary lisbon
