{"id":307951,"date":"2025-11-25T15:22:19","date_gmt":"2025-11-25T15:22:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/307951\/"},"modified":"2025-11-25T15:22:19","modified_gmt":"2025-11-25T15:22:19","slug":"aussie-star-bulks-up-for-trophy-hunt","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/307951\/","title":{"rendered":"Aussie star bulks up for trophy hunt"},"content":{"rendered":"

His shirts are perhaps getting a \u201clittle tight\u201d for his liking, but Min Woo Lee has made a concerted effort to bulk up to strengthen his game.<\/p>\n

After a mixed year on the PGA Tour, the Perth-born star is ready to attack Australian golf\u2019s two \u201cmajors\u201d with renewed gusto.
\u201cWe all want to get our hands on the trophies,\u201d Lee said ahead of this week\u2019s Australian PGA Championship at Royal Queensland and next week\u2019s Australian Open at Royal Melbourne.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s big part of playing these two events. I just want to play really good, solid golf, and hopefully I can give myself a chance on Sunday to get that trophy.\u201d<\/p>\n

Lee is no stranger to success at Royal Queensland, having won the Australian PGA two years again.<\/p>\n

His title defence didn\u2019t go to plan in November last year, with a knee injury hindering his golf.<\/p>\n

What followed was an up and down 2025.<\/p>\n

The highlight was winning on the PGA Tour for the first time when claimed victory at the Houston Open in March.<\/p>\n

\"PGA<\/p>\n

A stronger Min Woo Lee is keen to shine at Royal Queensland. Picture: Nigel Hallett<\/p>\n

However, Lee failed to build on that success, with his best subsequent effort being a tie for fifth at the French Open in September.<\/p>\n

\u201cI just didn\u2019t reset, didn\u2019t write my goals, and kind of just kept playing,\u201d the world No.46 said in reflecting on his year post-Houston.<\/p>\n

\u201cI felt like I was on high so that if I didn\u2019t play well, I would still be happy with the win, but golf is so quick.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou win, take a week off, and then the Masters is right there, and then you want to win that one, you want to win the next one, so (I was) a little result-orientated and not too process driven. That\u2019s one thing I learned from this year.\u201d<\/p>\n

Lee also felt his hip movement in his swing was letting him down, and as a result, he has worked hard to get stronger.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou see the best players in the world stack over their left side through impact, and with my swing through impact, my left hip was going backwards \u2026 so then my hands were getting too far forward, and I was getting a lot of shuffling,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cNow I\u2019m trying to stack over on to my left side and get better with that. I\u2019ve gained a lot of kilos just to get a bit stronger in that sense.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m feeling good. The shirts are getting a little tight, not just the top, but the bottom. I did the bulk bit pretty good, but now I\u2019ve probably got to cut a bit.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"PGA<\/p>\n

Lee has worked on getting stronger. Picture: Nigel Hallett<\/p>\n

Lee\u2019s Australian PGA preparations included a relaxing few days at home in Perth and a visit to Optus Stadium to see Australia beat England in just two days in the opening Test of the Ashes series.<\/p>\n

He was thrilled to see \u201cgolf tragic\u201d Mitchell Starc, who took 10 wickets for the match, star with the ball.<\/p>\n

\u201cI had a feeling that he was going to be on fire, but not that hot,\u201d Lee said.<\/p>\n

Lee also backed Australian opener Usman Khawaja\u2019s decision to play golf for three successive days before the first Test, despite the suggestion that it might have contributed to the veteran batsman\u2019s back problems during the match.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe don\u2019t want him hurt, but you\u2019ve got to have a balance between having fun and being outside, so hopefully that\u2019s not the reason \u2026 but good on him. We all love golf,\u201d Lee said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"His shirts are perhaps getting a \u201clittle tight\u201d for his liking, but Min Woo Lee has made a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":307952,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[566],"tags":[64,63,29976,6571,163411,755,5488,1747,29460,85],"class_list":{"0":"post-307951","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-golf","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-australian-golf","11":"tag-australian-open","12":"tag-australian-pga-championship","13":"tag-golf","14":"tag-min-woo-lee","15":"tag-pga-tour","16":"tag-royal-queensland","17":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/307951","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=307951"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/307951\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/307952"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=307951"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=307951"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=307951"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}