Min Woo Lee’s US Open start comes after sister’s win in the major and at a pivotal moment in golf

As for being the best player in his family, well, that’s tricky.

Min Woo is just outside the top 50, but only 23 years old. Still a pup in golf years. He’s going in the right direction, though not as quickly as his sister.

Minjee, Min Woo’s older sibling, is No.3 in the women’s world rankings and recent form suggests she hasn’t reached her ceiling.

A fortnight ago, she blitzed the field in the US Open. Got into a zone and gave no one else a chance. It was her second major victory. As sure as the sun rises in the east, there will be more.

One thing the Lees don’t do is get too carried away in the moment.

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“We went shopping. Didn’t buy anything,” Min Woo Lee says.

That’s it. That’s how Min Woo and Minjee, two Perth kids with extraordinary talent, celebrated Minjee winning the US Open, which happened to carry the biggest winner’s cheque in women’s golf history, $2.5 million.

“Our celebration was just eating good food, having each other’s company,” Min Woo says.

“She’s already got a nice car at home, not like she needs another one. She’s always good with her money. There’s not much that you need to have a good life and have fun.”

They are pretty switched on, the Lees.

A little bit of success only means the chance of more.

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The beauty of siblings. Same parents, same upbringing, same intent in life, yet they don’t fit the same mould.

Both born in Perth to Korean parents, they latched onto golf early and never let go. Both have swings that would sell for vast sums, if you could buy them.

Minjee is quiet, considered, dialled-in on everything about her game. Min Woo is a little more flippant, his mind oscillating shot to shot like a ball sitting on a slick green on a windy day.

“I like the way she handles herself on the course,” Min Woo admits.

“I’ve got to do something like that. I’m a pretty emotional player … the game is fun but when it’s a little off, I tend to go on the emotional side. It affects my game a bit more than when she’s down.”

Still, Min Woo is making some noise as he emerges on the world stage. Last year he took out the Scottish Open on the DP World Tour (formerly, European Tour).

Now he’s intent on making it on the US PGA Tour and this week, by virtue of his world ranking hovering around the 50 mark, he gets his first crack at a US Open.

No brother-sister combination has ever won majors. Let alone US Opens. Let alone in the same month.

To dull expectation, it will be just Min Woo’s fourth major start overall. Again, he’s only 23. He’s struggled to make cuts all year playing in America.

But then there’s the outlier in his recent record. It came at April’s Masters.

Well off the leaders going into the final day, Min Woo rolled through the gates and up Magnolia Lane on the Sunday and proceeded to shoot the lights out on his opening nine.

It took him 30 shots. The honey-smooth swing was in perfect symphony. The pristine undulations of Augusta’s fairways and greenways were a walkway to an equal best-ever front nine at the famous course. By anyone. Ever.

“I never expected to shoot 30 going out and have equal lowest score ever,” Min Woo says.

“Pat on the back for that! Tiger played there a million times and he doesn’t have the record, so it’s pretty sick to have a tie for the front nine record,” he adds with a smirk.

The back nine was a complete contrast. It took him 40 shots. Amen Corner took no mercy on his game. He found water on the par-3 12th, then twice on the par-5 13th.

While the bad gave a clear signal that improvement is needed, the good was a glaring example of unlimited potential.

Only six other players have shot 30 on the front nine at Augusta, including – drum roll please for the current drama in golf – Greg Norman and Phil Mickelson.

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Norman and Mickelson. Shark and Lefty. Each were, at respective times, the most popular player on the planet.

Now, they are viewed as pariahs. Both are faces of the new golf revolution seeking to disrupt the established pyramid, which has the all-powerful US PGA Tour at the top. The best there are making a great living. Heading into the US Open, the top 129 players on the money list have made $1 million (AUD) so far this season.

But the Saudi riches funding LIV Golf, which had its first event in England last week, make that look like shrapnel to buy a coffee.

Players like Mickelson are getting hundreds of millions just to play. Remember rugby league’s Super League? That was tiddlywinks in a mouth guard compared to this battle.

Mickelson is in Boston this week, allowed to play the US Open because the PGA Tour doesn’t organise it. The PGA Tour have made it clear anyone who plays LIV Golf is about as welcome to their tournaments as a sneeze in a lift.

Reports suggest that most players inside the world top 100 were approached by LIV Golf to join the rebel tour.

Min Woo was asked this week on a conference call with Australian reporters if he’d been approached to defect, just as he was getting started as a PGA Tour player.

He didn’t say yes, or no, but rather made clear his intentions: his dream has always been to play on the PGA Tour and now that he’s just about there, he’ll use his top 60 world ranking to get regular sponsor’s invitations. Get enough money from those events and he’ll get a full tour card for 2023.

“I want to be on the PGA Tour, want to get on a President’s Cup team,” Min Woo says of the biennial team event for which Australian players can be selected.

“I do not know what’s going on (with LIV Golf). I’m spending time on the PGA Tour, just trying to do as well as I can. I really have one job to do: trying to play against all these guys.”

From the car park to the locker room to the fairways, the chat at this week’s US Open is all about LIV Golf versus the PGA Tour. Norman and his Saudi royal riches versus the institution that has guided golf into the megabucks era, with $15 million tournament prize money the norm.

“There’s a lot going on, a lot of distractions,” Min Woo says, without irony.

“My goal stays the same.”

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It’s a good time to be good at golf, and a good time to couple that with a steady head.

The Lee family have produced two.

Min Woo and Minjee. Young brother takes his cues from older sister. Wise sister. Calm sister.

He will need every bit of that this week at The Country Club in Brookline, near Boston, for his shot at a US Open.

The US Open is traditionally the major in which players’ scores make weekend club golfers feel good about themselves.

Rough is left longer than the front yard of the neighbour who refuses to be house proud. Miss the skinny fairways and you may as well take a whipper snipper in.

It’s reality, though. Min Woo knows what’s coming.

“You are going to miss the fairway, you are going to miss the green,” he says.

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“It’s going to be tough. Don’t get too riled up about it.

“The person that forgets quickest could win.

“I know this is going to be a big test and I like a test, and I’m just going to go out there and enjoy it, do my work.”