The 2025 major season began with career grand slam mania. Could it end that way?
Minjee Lee certainly has a strong case for it at the AIG Women’s British Open. The Aussie collected her third different major title at the KPMG Women’s PGA Championship last month in Frisco, Texas, adding to her 2021 Amundi Evian Championship and 2022 U.S. Women’s Open titles.
The 29-year-old opened the AIG Women’s British Open with a 2-under 70 at Royal Porthcawl, putting her in fine position to make a run. In 11 previous Women’s British Open appearances, Lee has five top-11 finishes. She also finished one shot out of the playoff earlier this month at the Evian, won by Grace Kim.
“I don’t think I’m going to complain with a 2-under start,” she said after Thursday’s round in Wales. “Some of the holes are just beasts out there.”
The LPGA recognizes seven players as having won the career grand slam: Louise Suggs (1957), Mickey Wright (1962), Pat Bradley (1986), Juli Inkster (1999), Karrie Webb (2001), Annika Sorenstam (2003) and Inbee Park (2015).
After the LPGA added a fifth major, tour officials deemed that players who have won four different majors available in their careers will have accomplished the career grand slam.
Those who have won five different majors will have won the super career grand slam.
Webb is the only player to have won the super career grand slam. That happened in 2002 when she won the Weetabix Women’s British Open. She’d previously won the McDonald’s LPGA Championship, U.S. Women’s Open, Nabisco Championship and du Maurier Classic.
Lee is one of five active players on the LPGA who need one more major title to achieve the career grand slam. She’s joined by Lydia Ko, Anna Nordqvist, In Gee Chun and Yani Tseng. Chun and Lee are the only two players in the field this week who need the AIG to get it done.
Ko told Golfweek earlier in the year that in her book, she needs all five to achieve the career grand slam.
“I think for me, like all five is the goal,” added Lee last week in Scotland, “so I think it’s just different for us because we have five and we don’t have four. I think it should be – I don’t know what it should be, but I just think for me, five is the goal.”
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