An eagle at the 54th hole on Saturday propelled Lee into a tie with Thomas for the lead heading into the final round but not before revealing his wife had given birth prematurely to the couple’s second child just last Sunday.

The 29-year-old could barely bring himself to talk about the unexpected early arrival at the completion of his third round, only able to say that the baby was due around Christmas time before cutting himself short.

Despite the concern for his newborn, Lee went toe-to-toe with Thomas across the front nine at Jeju Island on Sunday, carding three birdies to remain tied at the turn and level with Thomas as the seemingly two-horse race reached the 14th tee.

A Thomas birdie and back-to-back bogeys by Lee opened up a three-shot buffer for the American, the 2017 champion holding on to win by two shots with Lee two shots back in outright second.

Pressing over the closing holes, Lee came close to matching his eagle from the previous day at the 18th hole when the ball bounced out after hitting the back of the cup, the 2016 Greenbrier champion content with the fourth second-place finish of his PGA TOUR career.

“Before I tee off my very first tee shot on Thursday, if someone’s going to give me solo second, I would take it in a heartbeat,” Lee said post-round.

“It is a good week, but also very disappointing. I really wanted to win The CJ CUP. It means a lot to me to win it in front of the Korean fans and all my Korean family, but it is what it is.

“I gave my best out there today and solo second was the best I could do.

“Just a couple holes that were letting me down with the driver on the back nine. A couple of tee shots that you cannot hit it in that bunkers on the left and I did, so struggling to make par from there when Justin had a couple birdie looks over there.

“I gave it a good run, though.”

An eagle at the 72nd hole elevated Cameron Smith into a tie for third three shots back from Lee while Matt Jones continued his consistent start to the 2019-2020 season with a tie for 20th thanks to a superb 7-under 65 on Sunday.

Ahead of his Japan Skins Challenge against Tiger Woods, Rory McIlroy and Hideki Matsuyama on Monday Jason Day was left to rue some sloppy finishes to his rounds as he finished tied for 31st having started the week with a 6-under 66.

“Obviously there’s a few errors in there that I need to tidy up,” Day conceded.

“I either start really well and then finish poorly or start poorly and finish well. I just didn’t tie the two nines together.

“I started off great, I shot 6-under the first round, and pretty much from there I just kind of struggled a little bit coming in.

“Overall I need to focus on the positives and try to take that into next week.”

As for what to expect from his maiden Skins Game, Day is prepping his sledging as well as his golf game.

“I’ve never played in a skins game before, so that’s going to be interesting,” said Day.

“There’s going to be a little bit of back and forth with the banter, so I’m excited about that.”

The Japan Skins Challenge begins at 3pm AEDT. The first two hours can be viewed on Channel Nine with full coverage on Golf TV.

PGA TOUR
The CJ Cup at Nine Bridges
The Club at Nine Bridges, Jeju Island, South Korea
2             Danny Lee           67-66-68-69—270            $US1.053m
T3           Cameron Smith  67-69-68-69—273            $507,000
T20        Matt Jones          72-70-72-65—279            $103,285
T31        Jason Day            66-73-71-71—281            $55,478
T43        Marc Leishman  72-69-72-71—284            $31,785
T67        Won Joon Lee    74-73-79-67—293            $17,648