Min Woo Lee has issued a brutal assessment of his own performance after the opening round of the Olympic golf event, and admitted that he was embarrassed after his first shot of the day at Le Golf National.
Min Woo Lee may have been one of the players plenty of fans were excited to see in action at the Olympic Games, with the 26-year-old impressing on the PGA Tour this season. He had finished inside the top 30 at the first three majors of the year.
Unfortunately, being back in Europe has not, so far, worked out too well for the Australian, with a 73rd place finish at the Scottish Open being followed by a missed cut at The Open Championship at Royal Troon.
And he has now got a lot of work to do if he wants to turn around his Olympic Games, after shooting a five over par round of 76 at Le Golf National to sit at the bottom of the leaderboard alongside Camilo Villegas.
Unfortunately, Lee found the water on the first hole, and things were not able to really improve from there, with the youngster ending the day 13 shots off the lead.
Unsurprisingly, Lee pulled absolutely no punches when assessing his performance on Thursday, as he also discussed the setback of finding the hazard on the opening hole.
Min Woo Lee issues brutal assessment of opening round at Olympics
“It was pretty garbage but I was saying in the other interview, sometimes you’re going to go a little bit backwards to go forwards. Working on a couple things and there was a lot of good out there.
But it’s just unfortunate as a player. You always want to play your best but sometimes the results don’t show that, especially at a course like this where it’s pretty tough and penalising. I felt like I was in all the penalties today. Didn’t drive it anywhere near as good I normally do. Normally I’m striping it lately. Hitting it pretty good off the tee but lots of water and lots of balls missing. Had to just kind of battle through that and yeah, it’s quite tough when you’re in thick hay most of the day,” he said.
“I think I just go out there and hopefully play some better golf. It’s tough. It’s tough. I mean, normally I’m playing a tournament with two days, and after you start like that, it’s pretty tough to make a cut or play good golf.
“I mean, we’ve got three days and hopefully I can do something to turn it around. Hopefully I can shoot a low one out there and just get myself a little bit back in it or some good moments going into the next tournament.
“I didn’t let that get to myself but just fighting a couple things in my swing today. Yeah, just going to clean that up this afternoon on the range.
“It’s nearly embarrassing. You work so hard. I striped it yesterday. You’d thought I could shoot 10-under yesterday. It’s just a sport where that happens. It’s not like I was nervous or anything to produce those swings but just not comfortable when I was out there.
“But it was a real — I never really feel it on the first hole but emotionally, I felt it on the first hole when I got announced. I think that just shows how much it means to me and yeah, it was pretty cool. I nearly had a tear in my eye which is not normal. It was quite cool to get announced like that. I was pretty impressed with the crowd out here early on. I think it was really good.”
Australian’s strategy now looks to be pretty clear
It will be interesting to see if the disappointment on Thursday almost manages to free Lee up for the rest of the event, as he certainly has the talent to take himself back up the leaderboard over the next three days.
Ultimately, there is glory to be had in finishing in any of the top three positions in this event, and there is no real prize for those who finish outside of those places, so Lee can afford to be more aggressive in the hope that his game clicks again and he can get himself back into the mix.
The likes of Hideki Matsuyama and Xander Schauffele have shown what can be done around Le Golf National, so Lee simply has to set his sights on three amazing rounds and see where it takes him.
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