South Korea’s Jeong-eun Lee6 proved that she is more than just making up the numbers on the LPGA Tour when she captured her first major title at the US Women’s Open.
The 23-year-old, who was 17th in the world rankings prior to the win, recently took the unusual step of adding the number ‘6’ to her surname in order to avoid confusion with the five other players with the exact same christian name and surname currently competing on the Korean LGPA Tour.
Lee6 fired rounds of 70, 69, 69 and 70 at the Country Club of Charleston in South Carolina to finish on six under par and take the title by two shots from Americans Angel Yin (68) and Lexi Thompson (73) and Korea’s Ryu So-yeon (70).
Lee6 trailed overnight leaders Celine Boutier of France and China’s Yu Liu by two shots at the start of the day, but their challenge faded with matching 75s. Lee fired four birdies in her closing round and had the luxury of being able to bogey two of the last three holes en route to picking up the $1,000,000 first prize.
“I had to change my name to Jeong-eun Lee6, because of all the other players with the same name, but six is my lucky number too, so it has all worked out in the end,” said Lee, who is the 16th player from South Korea to win a major, the most of any country other than the US.
England’s Charley Hull was three shots off the lead after 36 holes, but finished in a tie for 16thon level par after weekend rounds of 70 and 72.