With a slight frame, Min Woo Lee doesn’t look like he’d be one of the longest hitters on the PGA Tour, but he has been consistently in recent years. In fact, Lee, who hails from Perth, Australia, was seventh in driving distance a year ago, ahead of big hitters like Wyndham Clark, Jhonattan Vegas and Taylor Pendrith. This year, Lee is third on Tour in the stat, just behind Gary Woodland and Rory McIlroy.
And while distance isn’t always the key when it comes to scoring, at Houston’s Memorial Park, being long is certainly helpful, and Lee took advantage of calmer, soft conditions during Saturday’s play to charge ahead at the three-quarter mark of the 2025 Texas Chrildren’s Houston Open. In the process, he put himself in prime position to capture his first PGA Tour title, as the 26-year-old holds a four-stroke lead heading into the final day of play.
Lee made very few bad swings on Saturday, finishing off the final two holes of his second round by making a birdie and par, then shining brightly on a Texas afternoon by delivering seven birdies and no bogeys in the third round, pushing his score to 17 under. Alejandro Tosti is alone in second at 13 under while three players, led by Scottie Scheffler, are five back.
Min Woo Lee uses hot putter to take Houston lead
And while Lee is known for his driver, he got the putter rolling well on Saturday, using a stretch of 10 putts in 10 holes to forge ahead of Scheffler and into the lead.
“Yeah, “I guess it was a little autopilot early on. Very solid day again. The last couple days were really good,” he said. “Today was a really long day, I need to get back into bed. But maybe that’s what I have to do, I might have to do two warmups, two physio sessions and maybe I can shoot 7 under all the time. No, it was great fun and very solid overall.”
Because of the split start, Lee admitted he was tired after a long day of play, but he’ll be ready to go on Sunday, even if he thinks the schedule is unfair to players.
“I need a good night’s rest. It’s tough,” he said. “I don’t know if it’s controversial, but I talked to my fellow friends and we finished at 8 last night and we have to wake up at 5. The time from you to get off the course to have dinner, to go into your bed, you only have like five, six hours of sleep, so it’s not really healthy, I’d say. And I’m a great sleeper, and there’s guys that can’t sleep out on Tour and they have a tough time falling asleep. That’s it. But no, I think just a good night’s rest would be good. I’m proud of the way I handled myself today and hopefully I can do it again tomorrow.”
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