Min Woo Lee Talks TGL, Lofty Aims, And Presidents Cup Dream As PGA Tour Card Looms

Min Woo Lee is in Japan this week preparing for his latest PGA Tour outing in the ZOZO Championship. His place in the 78-player field for the event comes courtesy of a sponsor exemption, but the Australian is close to securing a full PGA Tour card for the 2024 season.

Lee is currently fifth in the DP World Tour Race to Dubai points list, well inside the top 10 needed to secure a PGA Tour card, and he admits he’s looking forward to the challenge of testing his abilities on the Tour on a regular basis.

He explained: “Yeah, it will be amazing. I enjoyed this year, played when I could on the PGA Tour and loved every second of it. Played really well this year, so hopefully I can keep going until next year. Yeah, it's going to be fun, I guess, living and staying around America a bit more. That's always been a dream of mine since I was a little kid, so I'm really excited for that to happen.”

Lee, who won last week's Macao Open on the Asian Tour, has performed well in many of his PGA Tour appearances in 2023, including T6 at The Players Championship and a T9 at the Travelers Championship. 

He also secured his first top-10 finish in a Major with a T5 at the US Open, and explained his ambitions stretch well beyond simply making up the numbers as a regular on the Tour, including going deep into the FedEx Cup Playoffs.

He continued: “I feel like I've slowly gotten better every time and got good results, so next year's going to be, I guess, more of a full schedule and hopefully I can get to the Tour Championship, stuff like that. I'd like to do as good as I can. Not in the elevated events yet, so I'll try to get into them, too, but it might be tough from my position right now.”

A world of possibilities certainly seems to be opening up for the 25-year-old, and he explained he also has designs on making the International Team for the Presidents Cup. He said: “After watching the Ryder Cup, the Presidents Cup definitely rose up in the ranks. I wanted to be on that team last year, but I just missed out I feel like, so that was a bit of a kick in the gut. Ever since then I've kind of played well.”

There is more for Lee to look forward to before that, too. He is the latest player to join Tiger Woods and Rory McIlroy’s TGL, where, as well as the co-founders, he will join the likes of two-time Major winners Jon Rahm, Collin Morikawa and Justin Thomas.

He admitted he’s in awe of some of the players he will be up against in the made-for-TV competition, which begins in January: “Oh, it's amazing,” he said. “Look at the roster, it's crazy. It seems like everyone and then there's me. I'm trying to do my best and compete with these guys. These guys, obviously Major champions and best in the world.

“I guess a bit of my fun personality and hopefully I can play some good golf there, too. I really like that, like type of format, team event. I'm not sure what team I'll be on, but yeah, I'll be really excited. Hope I can get a couple of big boys and we can up winning.”

After an impressive ascent since turning pro in 2019, Lee now stands one place beneath his career high of World No.44. With more opportunities opening up for him, he seems primed to become one of the game’s next breakout stars.