Minjee Lee wins playoff to take BMW Ladies Championship

Australia’s Minjee Lee defeated the United States’ Alison Lee in a playoff to win the 2023 BMW Ladies Championship in Paju, Gyeonggi on Sunday. It marks the 27-year-old golfer’s 10th career LPGA title and second Tour win this season

Australia's Minjee Lee tees off on the 6th hole during the final round of the 2023 BMW Ladies Championship at Seowon Valley Country Club's Seowon Hills in Paju, Gyeonggi on Sunday. [AFP/YONHAP]

PAJU, Gyeonggi — Australia’s Minjee Lee defeated the United States’ Alison Lee in a playoff to win the 2023 BMW Ladies Championship in Paju, Gyeonggi on Sunday. It marks the 27-year-old golfer’s 10th career LPGA title and second Tour win this season.

Both landed on the green in two strokes, but Minjee Lee made it closer to the flag, needing a shorter putt to claim victory. She bested Alison Lee’s par with a birdie to win the title at the LPGA Tour’s lone stop in Korea during its fall Asian swing.

The two entered the playoff at 16-under-par, 272, with Alison Lee shooting a five-under-par, 67, and Minjee Lee a four-under-par, 68, on Sunday under partly cloudy skies with minimal wind at Seowon Valley Country Club’s Seowon Hills.

It was Minjee Lee’s third playoff on the LPGA Tour this season. She lost to Korea’s Ko Jin-young at the Cognizant Founders Cup in May but defeated Charley Hull at the Kroger Queen City Championship last month to win her first Tour title this season. She then lost another playoff to Lee Da-yeon after three grueling rounds at the KLPGA Hana Financial Group Championship two weeks later.

It was anyone’s game in the back nine of the final round at the BMW, with Minjee Lee and Alison Lee staying co-leaders for most of the day while a handful of golfers traded birdies for bogeys to switch in and out of third.

The two played in different groups of three on Sunday, with Alison Lee teeing off about a half hour before Minjee Lee, staying about one hole ahead of her opponent while at times playing catch-up.

Neither of the leaders were bogey-free on Sunday, with Minjee Lee earning hers on the ninth hole before making it up with a birdie on the tenth to reclaim her title as co-leader. Alison Lee did the same on the par-four 12th, dropping into second place before hitting a birdie on the par-four 13th to reclaim her spot alongside Minjee Lee at the top.

A birdie on hole number 13 put Minjee Lee again one stroke ahead of Alison Lee, who swiftly pulled level with a birdie on the 14th.

But a bogey for Alison Lee on the 16th hole, at which she was forced to move her ball after it rolled onto a metal plate on the course, put Minjee Lee two strokes ahead with three holes left to play.

Alison Lee hit a birdie on the 17th, putting her one stroke behind Minjee Lee heading into her final hole of the tournament. Alison Lee closed out her final round with another birdie on the par-four 18th, with Minjee Lee needing a birdie to win the championship.

Minjee Lee came up short on her second shot, just missing the green, to take par with her fourth stroke and a ticket to the playoff.

With her win, the Australian golfer earned a grand prize of $330,000 — the largest in tournament history — to put her Tour total to $1,552,475 this season and career purse at $13,765,643.

Australia's Minjee Lee is sprayed with champagne by Hannah Green, also of Australia, after winning the BMW Ladies Championship in Paju, Gyeonggi on Sunday. [AP/YONHAP]

Minjee Lee is now the fifth player to earn multiple LPGA titles this season, joining France’s Celine Boutier and the United States’ Lilia Vu, each with three, along with Korea’s Ko Jin-young and China’s Yin Ruoning, each with two.

With the win, the BMW Ladies Championship remains a distinctly Korean affair. Since the tournament became an LPGA event in 2019, all four champions have had a personal Korean connection: The first two champions, Jang Ha-na and Ko Jin-young, are Korean, the third champion Lydia Ko was born here and both of Minjee Lee's parents are Korean and emigrated to Australia shortly before she was born.

"This one is extra special," Lee said when asked about what it meant to play in Korea during a press conference following her win on Sunday.

The sky was partly cloudy above the green at Seowon Valley, a hilly course built at the foot of mountains covered with trees whose leaves have begun to change color. The wind stayed at a minimum throughout the whole day, with the weather a serious improvement from strong winds, rain and chill earlier in the tournament.

Defending champion Lydia Ko entered the final day tied-for-third and in contention for the title after failing to break into the top 10 after the first round on Thursday. But a bogey at the 15th hole on Sunday, where she hit two bunkers, dropped Ko further down the scoreboard and essentially out of a shot to take another BMW win.

Three Korean players finished in the top ten, with Lee Jeong-eun6 and Shin Ji-yai closing out the final round tied for fifth, each shooting 12-under-par, 276, and Jenny Shin ending the tournament tied for tenth, with 11-under-par, 277.

Shin Ji-yai and Lee Jeong-eun6 managed the best finishes among the Korean contingent, both tying for fifth alongside England's Jodi Ewart Shadoff, Thailand's Atthaya Thitikul and France's Boutier.

Ko Jin-young displayed a lackluster performance over the four-day run, managing a three-under-par, 285, to tie for 48th in her first LPGA tournament since the CPKC Women’s Open in August, when she finished as a runner-up.

Kim Hyo-joo, who won the Ascendant LPGA benefiting Volunteers of America earlier this month, also did not show her best performance. She carded six birdies on the last day, including the two consecutive birdies on the 17th and 18th holes, but she tied for 16th place with a final score of nine-under-par, 279.

A total of 76 golfers played all four days of the no-cut BMW championship for a piece of its $2.2 million purse.

The Tour next heads to Malaysia for the Maybank Championship and then to Japan for the decades-old Toto Japan Classic before the circuit heads back to the United States to close out the season.

BY MARY YANG AND PAIK JIHWAN [mary.yang@joongang.co.kr]