The phone interview with Ahn Sun-ju came just after Lee Jeong-min's retirement press conference ended. As it happened, the two players' exits nearly overlapped. Ahn announced her retirement from the Japan Ladies Professional Golf Association (JLPGA) Tour on social media on the 14th, and Lee held her retirement ceremony on the Korea Ladies Professional Golf Association (KLPGA) Tour on the 15th.
There seems to be no fixed formula for farewells in golf. Some players hold lavish retirement ceremonies, while others say goodbye at modest gatherings. Many leave quietly, without any event to mark the occasion at all.
Ahn and Lee followed similar formulas. Neither Shin Ji-yai nor Lee Bo-mi, who competed alongside Ahn in Japan, knew she was stepping away. Only four or five colleagues knew about Lee's retirement in advance.
When told that Lee had just held her retirement ceremony, Ahn said, "Really?" and fell silent for a second or two. Then she said, "'Well done, you worked hard' — that's about all I can say to Jeong-min from where I stand now." She added, "The good players, the hard-working players, are leaving one by one. I know it's the natural order of things, but it still feels lonely."
The brevity of "well done" and "you worked hard" seemed to carry a deeper respect. Lee built up 11 career victories, starting with her first win in 2010, her debut year on the KLPGA Tour. That same year, Ahn moved to the JLPGA Tour.
In 2008, Ahn finished first in Ladies Professional Golf Association (LPGA) Tour qualifying school, a field that included teen prodigy Michelle Wie. But she gave up the hard-won chance to play in the United States, judging that life on the American tour would not suit her. Japan became her next stage. She swept the tour's major titles with four wins in her first season, won at least two tournaments every year through 2016, and after a single victory in 2017 came back with five the following year. In all, she piled up 28 wins in Japan alone.
She endured injuries large and small over the years, including neck disc surgery in 2019. But after giving birth to twins, a son and a daughter, in 2021, she returned to KLPGA Tour events on a lifetime exemption and showed she was still a presence, contending for victory several times.
Lee's career had its own share of ups and downs, with long stretches between wins. A decade ago, in March 2016, I watched her secure her eighth career title at Mission Hills Golf Club in Dongguan, China, closing out the World Ladies Championship with a four-stroke comeback. Known for her length off the tee and pinpoint iron play, Lee had been relatively weak with the putter. But she learned AimPoint Express, a method of reading greens by holding up fingers from behind the ball, and her putting improved dramatically. That year, it looked as if she might form a two-horse race with Park Sung-hyun, or even run away with the season herself.
Instead, while Park set off a sensation with seven wins in a single year, Lee was left with that one March victory, and the following season she fell as low as 81st on the money list. In October 2021, she claimed her ninth career win after five years and seven months — 2,044 days. "I'm not a genius golfer, so I'll keep living the way I have, working steadily every day," she said at the time. Her putts had refused to drop for so long that she had even tried stroking them with her eyes closed during tournaments — a measure of how hard she had been fighting.
At her retirement press conference, Lee looked back and said, "I wasn't a player who won consistently. I'd go through a very hard stretch, barely manage a win, and then run into trouble again." She added, "There were times when I didn't know what to do, when golf felt like a maze with no answer."
To the younger players, she said, "It won't be easy, but I hope they don't fixate on the ball too much." She went on, "Golf gives you an immediate result — the ball lands in the fairway or buries itself in the rough, drops in the hole or misses. But I hope they don't obsess over every single shot. You can't exactly enjoy it. Still, I think it matters to think, 'The ball will go where it wants to go.' Where could it possibly go? In the end, it's still somewhere on the course."
After winning her first major championship in 2024 for her 11th career title, Lee was sidelined for a long stretch again by a wrist injury. She said the lingering effects left her feeling she had reached the limit of what she could do to rebuild her game. Asked whether she felt any bitterness, any sense that she could have done more had she stayed healthy, Lee said, "No. I feel relieved." She added, "Even the shots that went out of bounds, I gave my best in that moment, so I have no regrets." She finished her career with exactly 400 KLPGA Tour events, including 386 on the regular tour.
Because Lee's acceptance of her retirement came across so strongly, the regret in Ahn's voice sounded all the more keenly felt.
Asked what she felt — pride or regret — as she wrapped up her JLPGA Tour career, Ahn spoke of regret first. "I set a goal of earning a lifetime exemption in Japan, which takes 30 wins, but I went through having children and my game declined, so I never got there. The regret is considerable."
Even with 28 victories to her name, she spoke less of pride in her record than of gratitude. "I'm just thankful to be a player who gets to play a retirement tournament," she said. "Thanks to my sponsor's consideration, I get to finish at the tournament where I won for the last time in 2018, and that means a lot." She added, "My shoulder isn't in great shape, and honestly I'm quite worried about whether I can play well in my final event. The encouragement from people around me gave me the courage."
The Nobuta Group tournament in Hyogo Prefecture, Japan, on the 22nd will be her 256th JLPGA Tour start and her last. On the KLPGA Tour, Ahn compiled seven regular tour wins and three on the second-tier Dream Tour across 202 events.
Her twins will start elementary school the year after next. The next few years could be the most important period between a mother and her children. "They say that when you're raising a child, this time never comes back," Ahn said. "I want to spend as much time as I can with them during the most important stretch."
"At some point, instead of saying 'Mom, come back safely,' the kids started saying 'Goodbye, Mom.' It hurt in a corner of my heart to wonder whether I'd become an outsider to them."
Her lifetime exemption on the KLPGA Tour means she remains an active player, but from now on she plans to focus on her role as a mother rather than as a golfing mom. She intends to cut back sharply, to one or two tournaments a year. She is, however, interested in the KLPGA Senior Tour, open to players 40 and over. Senior tour events are typically held once or twice a month, and Ahn is now 39.
"People have long told me, 'Ahn Sun-ju never smiles during a round.' It may be late in the day, but these days I try to smile even when I'm playing badly," she said — and that smile should be a familiar sight on the senior tour. A first win as a mother is something to look forward to on that new stage, too.
"I realized I've been a pro for 21 years. I got this far thanks to the people who cheered for Ahn Sun-ju from behind the scenes ever since I was young, the ones who said 'it's okay' and 'we'll wait' even when the results weren't there. In the tournaments ahead, I'll play while remembering that gratitude more clearly."
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