West Australian Minjee Lee will tee up tomorrow at the LPGA Tour’s season-ending CME Group Tour Championship in Naples, Florida, knowing she is in with a great chance not only to win the tournament but also to take home the US$1m bonus on offer for the winner of the Race to the CME Globe.
After 31 tournaments, 25 winners, 13 host countries and one international team competition, the 2018 LPGA Tour season wraps up this week with the CME Group Tour Championship, which will be held at the Tiburón Golf Club.
World No. 1 and the season’s dominant player Ariya Jutanugarn leads the field of 72 elite players, with 12 women vying for the $1 million bonus that goes to the winner of the Race to the CME Globe, a season-long points competition.
For Lee and any of the other top five seeds, it’s easy – win the CME Group Tour Championship and take home US$1 million. However, the top 12 in the points race all have a mathematical chance to take the bonus.
Sitting at No. 2, Lee has a plethora of quality finishes behind her in 2018 including 13 top-10 finishes and wins at the LPGA Volvik Championship on the LPGA Tour and the Oates Vic Open on the ALPG Tour, standing her in good stead as she steps on to on the big stage this week.
“All my experience in the last three years, I’m just a little bit more mature and settled in on the Tour so I know myself better and how to handle things,” said the 22-year-old Lee, who is ranked No. 5 in the world. “In San Francisco, I lost in a playoff, but to get myself in that position I was really happy. I’ve had a lot of great experiences this year and been in contention quite a lot but haven’t been able to win multiple times.”
Lee will tee off alongside Jutanugarn and No. 3 seed Brooke Henderson in the final group at 10:41 a.m local time. She will be joined in the field by her compatriots Katherine Kirk, Su Oh, Sarah Jane Smith and Hannah Green.