Min Woo Lee won’t ‘moan’ about missing PGA Tour signature events

LOS ANGELES – The PGA Tour’s eight signature events introduced for this season have drawn the ire of many veteran players, who have missed out on the limited-field events featuring US$20 million (S$27 million) purses.

Min Woo Lee has a different perspective – play better.

The affable 25-year-old has been ranked as high as 31st in the world this season, and made the cut at The Players Championship before posting top-26 finishes at each of the year’s first three Majors.

But he played in just one of the eight signature events, finishing in a tie for 44th at the Arnold Palmer Invitational in March. The final event was the June 20-23 Travelers Championship, won by world No. 1 Scottie Scheffler.

“I think it’s great that the PGA Tour is doing that,” Lee said when asked about his stance on the signature events.

“I’m not the one to moan about it, but I guess I played every Major, which is awesome and amazing. I played into them. To not like play most of the signature events, it was kind of hard to take a little bit.”

While making 11 of 12 cuts so far in 2024, Lee has only one top-20 finish – he was a runner-up at the Cognizant Classic.

He does have a string of five consecutive finishes between tied-21st and tied-26th and arrived at the June 27-30 Rocket Mortgage Classic ranked 64th in the FedExCup standings.

That puts him on the outside looking in at the coveted top 50 spots that get guaranteed spots into the 2025 signature events.

The difficulty of earning spots into those events, along with five of them being no-cut events and the other three allowing for a handful of sponsors’ exemptions, has generated significant backlash among the tour’s rank-and-file.

PGA Tour commissioner Jay Monahan said recently that the qualification guidelines are constantly being reviewed, but also lauded the ability of players to earn their way into signature events via the Aon Swing 5 and the Aon Next 10.

While admittedly disappointed to have missed out on all but one signature events this season, Lee is in Detroit for the first time to continue his quest to get into the top 50.

“I know I’ve got to play better and make the cut-off line at the end of the year and get to play next year,” he said.

“I think it’s great. We all try to play those big events and yeah, obviously it’s a new thing and all of us are trying to get into those events.”

It is also a critical stretch of golf for the Australian, who will compete in the Olympics and is also attempting to qualify for his first Presidents Cup team.

“It would be massive. I felt like I missed out last year by a small margin, and really excited this year,” Lee added.

“I know the American team is very strong and we’ve got to play very well to beat them. Especially a team aspect, I really love playing matchplay and just being with a partner is cool.” REUTERS