To some a B is just fine, completely acceptable, for others B could even be cause for celebration, but for a golfer who’s steady rise to the top has been relatively linear since he was a teenager, Min Woo seemed slightly disappointed with the grading.

In the 12 months since his stunning win at last year’s Australian PGA Championship, Lee has not recorded a win, his tied-third finish at the 2023 ISPS HANDA Australian Open a week later the latest of his close calls.

He also had two runner-up finishes in his first fulltime year on the PGA TOUR.

What Lee was also able to accomplish included qualifying for the PGA TOUR Playoffs, and remain in the top-50 on the Official World Golf Rankings, which are no small feats.

“At the end of the day, it wasn’t too bad of a year,” Lee said. “Had some good finishes but had a very consistent year, which I’m not really known for.

“I am trying to get to that stage. I feel like you kind of have a taste of the consistency and you’re kind of like, ‘oh top 20, top 30 again and again’.”

Making a name for himself with bursts of brilliance, and fireworks on the golf course, maybe it’s not disappointment and just the fact he is still getting used to his newfound steadiness.

Minjee meanwhile, fresh off a flight from the US, while clearly not thrilled with her year on the LPGA Tour, but seemed happy to be back in her home country with the pressure slightly off.

Whenever Australian great Karrie Webb returned to the Australian Open, winning was the expectation, anything else a failure.

It’s an expectation Minjee took on, but this year the expectation has probably been handed over to fellow West Australian star Hannah Green, a three-time LPGA Tour winner in 2024.

With the pressure off, it might finally be time for Minjee to breakthrough in her home open.

“Because it’s my national title, I think I’ve put a little bit more added pressure just on myself to perform and have a good result,” said Minjee at Kingston Heath today.

“Sometimes it does work in my favour and sometimes it doesn’t, and I think more often than not, it has not worked in my favour.”

The pressure was on Min Woo last year at The Australian too, hot off his big win in Brisbane and leading after three rounds, it wasn’t to be.

Both Minjee and Min Woo will have to overcome other hurdles this week. Min Woo has an ongoing knee issue, while Minjee has to tee it up on Thusday without seeing the course.

The only chance she had for a practice round was Wednesday afternoon, and with both courses closed due to weather, the first look she will get will be her 7:11am tee time at Victoria tomorrow.

This year the Lees have less expectation, publicly at least, and that might be exactly what they need. Such is the nature of the Open, and how highly they regard it, a win for both here may turn their grades for 2024 into a least an A.

The 22-year-old Australian has a shot at the ISPS HANDA Australian Open this week at Kingston Heath and Victoria, but by Monday he will be enroute to South Africa for the Nedbank Challenge in Sun City.

It’s a $US6 million tournament with a limited field of 66 and it represents his future as a world player.
All of it has come as a result of winning the co-sanctioned BMW Australian PGA Championship at Royal Queensland last Sunday, holding off no less a star than Cameron Smith. As a tournament winner he is now a full DP World Tour member for the rest of this season and all of next.

It has been a whirlwind for the Golf Australia Rookie Squad member, including a night at home on the Gold Coast followed by a 7.30am flight to Melbourne. He’s opened a taste of the numerous congratulatory messages on his phone, and one that stuck out was from Ivan Lendl, the eight-times Grand Slam singles tennis champion who is a friend of the family and who watched the coverage from overseas.

But he has not touched a drop of alcohol; he fits the modern template of the golfer-athlete. “I’ve been quite on my best behaviour,” he said. “There’ll be a time to celebrate, but for now I’m really looking forward to doing my best here at Australian Open.”

Smylie’s new-found fame has piqued some media interest particularly in his name, which comes from his father Peter’s Elvis Presley obsession. At Royal Queensland last week, a spectator asked him to sing but he politely declined.

His physique – pencil-thin with no dramatic signs of change despite the weights regime he has put in place with Golf Australia’s strength and conditioning guru Luke Mackey – is another point of interest. He still hasn’t reached 80 kilograms despite his substantial height, and the chicken and rice diet that amounts to “eating as much as I can”.

He looks something like the kid who won the Australian Junior championship in 2019 at the peak of a stellar amateur career.

Smylie is negotiating his new world a step at a time and focusing on his national Open in the Melbourne sandbelt this week, where he will again take on Australia’s best along with numerous European players and the likes of defending champion Joaquin Niemann.

“I think the biggest thing that I’ve spoken to, especially with the team that I have around me is not to get too complacent with what I’ve achieved so far,” he said. “Obviously it’s been a dream start to the Australian season for me, but there’s more that I want achieve this year and what my team have done a really good job with is easing the reins a little bit and focusing on what needs to be focused on. And that’s this week for me and making sure that I’m doing all the stuff that I need to do by the time I tee it up on Thursday.”

The left-handed Smylie is now eyeing the DP World Tour’s Middle East swing in January, but he also wants to come home to achieve his original goal for this summer – winning the Order of Merit on the Challenger PGA Tour of Australasia, which concludes in March.

Two years after his first, faltering foray into Europe, the world is suddenly opening up for him. And quickly.

PHOTO: Elvis Smylie addresses the media at Kingston Heath today. Image: Daniel Pockett

Karl Vilips has not played in an Australian Open since 2017, when he received an invitation at The Australian via Golf Australia as one of the best young golfers in the national. He missed the cut; feeling the nerves of the occasion unsurprisingly for a 16-year-old.

But today not even a dank Melbourne ‘pea souper’ of a day, nor the unrelenting flies, could contain his excitement at teeing up in another Open.

Vilips played the 2019 Junior Presidents Cup representing the International team at Royal Melbourne, but in truth most of the past 10 years of his life have been spent in the USA, both at high school and Stanford University.

Now he’s back and trying first and foremost to get his hands on the Stonehaven Cup but also to get his game together for the PGA Tour in 2025.

As soon as next month in Hawaii, Vilips will debut as a full member of the tour, having graduated from the Korn Ferry Tour in 2024. It’s a task about which he’s talked a lot with his coach Colin Swatton of Jason Day fame.

He’s only a year older than Elvis Smylie the Queenslander who jumped up to win the BMW Australian PGA Championship on Sunday. Vilips said he was “really proud of Smylie’s achievement at such a tender age, and he is using it as motivation. “The ascension can be quick and he’s a good example.”

His appearance at Kingston Heath and Victoria this week will come with some expectations, but he is cool with that. “That’s what comes with it, so I’m just looking forward to embracing that and just trying to do my best.”

Vilips grew up in Perth but spent three years in Melbourne as a boy around 2010. It was the time that he came to notice as a world junior champion and a wunderkind, reeling off records and titles with a Tiger Woods-ish relentlessness.

Fortunately like Woods, he did not turn out to be a child prodigy who fell away like many do. His first pro win, on the Korn Ferry Tour in Utah this year, helped him qualify 19th of the top 30 who graduated from the KFT to the PGA Tour for 2025.

“It’s great to be back home,” he said today. “I haven’t been back in a while, but I’m also very grateful to Golf Australia for giving me the invite this year. Nothing really beats the sandbelt, so excited that I get to show everyone that (I’ve) gotten a lot better since the last time I was here and I’m really excited to show my game in front of the crowds here.”

Photo: Rob Prezioso

After growing up in country Victoria, Leishman and Herbert both graduated to Sandbelt clubs in their teenage years, and are excited to be back on courses they know so well at Kingston Heath and The Victoria golf clubs.

While they used to battle it out around the Heath and Victoria for Pennants flags, this week it will be for the coveted Stonehaven Cup, a piece of silverware that has eluded both men in their illustrious careers.

“I grew up watching them, seeing Greg Norman and all the big Aussie guys winning them,” said Leishman.

“It’s obviously a trophy that I want to hold up and probably something that’s missing from my resume.”

While Leishman won several times at home before taking his talents internationally, Herbert claimed his maiden Challenger PGA Tour of Australasia victory on home soil two weeks ago at the Ford NSW Open, and was immediately hungry for more.

It wasn’t the week he would have liked at the BMW Australian PGA Championship in Brisbane, but he is confident he can turn it around now he is back in his home state on familiar turf.

“I just struggled on the greens, I struggled reading the greens,” Herbert said of Royal Queensland.

“They were really tricky up there and felt like if they hadn’t of written them in braille, I might’ve been half a chance.

“I’ve just done some playing drills here this morning and they’re starting to go in again, so I’m looking forward to this week.”

Unlike Herbert, and indeed their Ripper GC captain Cam Smith, who has been back in Australia for several weeks, Leishman arrived at Royal Queensland after a significant break from tournament golf.

The man from Warnambool came to play though, and has a lot of confidence arriving in Melbourne off the back of a T3 finish at Royal Queensland.

“It was a fun week,” Leishman said. “Nice to play well, obviously not quite the result I was after, but it was great playing with Cam and Elvis in the last round and to see Elvis do what he did, it was pretty impressive.

“Wish it was me, but it’s good to see the young lad do so well and handle the pressure and (he’s) certainly got a very bright future.”

The young talent in Australian golf is something both men have noticed on their trips home this year, and while encouraging, both recognise there are serious players standing in the way of their quest for the Stonehaven Cup.

“There’s just a bunch of guys like that out here that you just forget play out here and you come back to these events and you think every year ‘oh surely we’ve got to win one of these’, but every year just it sneaks up and you’re like, ‘gee, these guys are still really good’,” said Herbert.

Leishman added with a smile: “There’s definitely a lot of young guys coming up. I think there’s probably not just Elvis, there’s probably a couple others that I’m sure Cam’s having a look at as I get a little bit older and Jonesy gets a little bit older.”

“It’s nice to have someone, have a bit of pressure from up-and-coming guys to want to play well.”

While coming back to Australia in general is always a highlight of Leishman and Herbert’s year, the Open being in Melbourne this year makes this trip just that extra bit special.

“We look forward to getting back to Australia and particularly Victoria all year,” said Leishman. “Now we’re finally back here we’re filling ourselves up on the good breakfast and coffees and all the food.”

Photo: Daniel Pockett