“Not playing for Australia”: Aussie LPGA star Minjee Lee talks about her emotions heading into 2024 Paris Olympics
Today, August 7, Minjee Lee will tee off alongside the other women in the field for the 2024 Paris Olympics. Once they begin, they'll be in tournament mode.
At the 2020 Tokyo Olympics, Lee finished tied for 29th after shooting four-under for the weekend. In 2016, she tied for eighth. This year, she is aiming for more.
She spoke on her appearance this time around:
"I guess the biggest honor that you could have in terms of playing for your country - I know week in, week out we do play for Australia but we're not playing for Australia. I feel like it's just a little bit different. The atmosphere is a little different."
Lee also spoke on the change in schedule compared to regular tournaments, since they start on a Wednesday rather than a Thursday and since they begin playing so quickly after the men did at the same venue.
She also added that 2016 being the first year in over a century to host Olympic golf made it unique. 2020's edition had all the COVID-19 protocols, which made it rather unique as well:
"Paris will be like a proper experience of like how an Olympics should be. I think the experience will be a little bit different."
Lee is one of the few who have competed in all three editions of the modern game. The only other iteration of Olympic women's golf was in 1904 before it was left out for over a century.
Hannah Green, Minjee Lee discuss male counterparts at Olympics
The 2024 Paris Olympics has two golfers from Australia for the men's and women's competitions each. Hannah Green and Minjee Lee will represent the women, whereas Jason Day and Min Woo Lee already did so for the men. Min Woo is Minjee's brother.
The four of them have gone to some dinners while in Paris, and Lee revealed that it gave her a unique perspective (via KOBI 5):
“Like, Jason Day was air gripping and stuff like that, all the golf mechanisms. A little different perspective of what we talk about and how, when we have dinner, we don’t talk about golf at all. Just a different perspective that he has and what Min has.”
Green called the males "golf nerds" jokingly, and added that it seems like "they talk much more about golf" than the women do:
"Even yesterday, they were just talking about golf swing positions and things like that. I honestly don’t talk about that at all. Sometimes even at the golf course, I don’t even talk about it."
Today, the women will take to the course and begin their attempt to bring Olympic glory to their country.