Perth’s Minjee Lee has been awarded the Greg Norman Medal for a record third time at the 2023 PGA Awards held in Brisbane on Tuesday night.
A two-time winner on the LPGA Tour in 2023, Lee beat the strongest field of contenders in the award’s nine-year history, including reigning Australian PGA champion Cameron Smith, and Minjee’s younger brother, Min Woo Lee.
Despite a slow start to the season, 27-year-old Minjee found her A Game in May, losing a tight playoff to Jin Young Ko at the Cognizant Founders Cup before a run of seven consecutive top-20 finishes.
Minjee briefly dropped outside of the top 10 in the world rankings before responding with her ninth LPGA Tour victory at the Kroger Queen City Championship in September. Three weeks later, she registered LPGA win No. 10 at the BMW Ladies Championship in Korea to climb back to number 4 in the world.
Judging of the Greg Norman Medal is based on a combination of objective and subjective criterion, with the panel taking many factors into consideration, including results and rankings. The judges were PGA of Australia Chair Rodger Davis, WPGA Tour life member Karrie Webb, WPGA Tour President Julia Boland, PGA life member Peter O’Malley and PGA board member Ian Baker-Finch.
Minjee Lee won two LPGA Tour events in another stellar year
Minjee previously won the Greg Norman Medal in 2018 and 2021, with other winners including Jason Day (2015-16), Cam Smith (2020, 2022) and Hannah Green (2019).
In announcing Minjee’s success, PGA of Australia Chief Executive Gavin Kirkman said: “Minjee continues to represent Australian golf in the best way possible. To now have 10 wins on the LPGA Tour – including two Major championships – at such a young age establishes Minjee as one of our greatest golfers of all time.”
There were more winners on the night, with three-time tournament winner David Micheluzzi taking the Challenger PGA Tour of Australasia Player of the Year, Grace Kim awarded the Margie Masters Player of the Year and Queenslander Andre Stolz the PGA Legends Tour Player of the Year.
See the full list of winners here.
Image credits: Getty Images
