Australia’s reigning U.S. Women’s Open champion secured the monster cheque for $A1.49m after winning the season-long AON Risk Reward Challenge.
Lee led the Tour for “strategy and decision-making” for much of the year and ultimately edged out Thailand’s World No.1 Atthaya Thitikul for the award.
The Tour nominates certain holes for every event on the calendar, with players taking their best two scores from each and Lee averaged almost a birdie per designated hole to take the honours.
“Actually I wasn’t really as aware until Korea,” Lee said. “My caddie didn’t really bring it up too many times until then and said it was quite a tight race between Atthaya and probably Xiu Lin. Yeah, he was, like, We better play those holes well.”
“It’s quite life-changing money that Aon puts up, and it’s really great for the women’s tour and the LPGA.” – Minjee Lee.
The 26-year-old is the second Australian in two years to claim the prize after fellow Perth major winner Hannah Green was the 2021 AON Risk Reward Challenge recipient.
“I think it really closes the gap between the LPGA and PGA Tour,” the World No.5 said. “It’s quite life-changing money that Aon puts up, and it’s really great for the women’s tour and the LPGA. It’s a great opportunity for us on both tours just to be put on kind of the same plane.”
The accolade is merely the latest in a golden year for Lee.
In addition to landing her second career major at Pine Needles in June, Lee captured the Annika Major Award for also finishing joint runner-up at the KPMG Women’s PGA Championship and fourth at the AIG Women’s Open.
With $US3,759,835 ($A5.61m) in earnings, even without her latest bonus, Lee enters this week’s season-ending Tour Championship in Florida well clear on the LPGA Tour’s money list for 2022.
And she also remains right in contention for Player of the Year honours.
Lee can bag that award if she finishes in the top-10 above New Zealander Lydia Ko on Sunday and either Thitikul or American Brooke Henderson don’t win the event.
