ICHEON — At the H1 Club in Icheon, Gyeonggi Province, on the 15th, younger players watching the retirement ceremony for Lee Jeong-min, an 11-time winner on the Korea Ladies Professional Golf Association tour, were overheard saying: "She's happy right now. She looks so happy. We're the only ones crying like this."
Speaking with reporters after the ceremony, Lee said her feelings were not bittersweet but simply a sense of relief. "I gave every choice my absolute best at the time, so I have no regrets. Even the balls that went out of bounds — in that moment, I gave it everything I had. I've lived with the mindset that even if something breaks tomorrow or I can never play golf again, I want to get through today without regret." She chose the H1 Club as the site of her retirement because it is where she usually practices.
Lee, who debuted on the regular tour in 2010, built a career of 11 victories, including one major title. Her powerful, technical shots drew comparisons to the men's game, and many younger players wanted to hit the ball the way she did. She earned the nickname "the original girl crush."
After winning the KLPGA Championship, a major, in April 2024, Lee slid into a decline as missed cuts piled up. "Right after that win, I tore the cartilage in my wrist," she said. "The treatment went well, but late in the season, when the weather turned cold and the rough got longer, it started to bother me. My thinking was that if I couldn't produce a level of play I could accept, I would leave without looking back — and I decided that time had come." Her regular tour card runs through next year, but Lee said she is leaving the course without any lingering attachment.
About 20 colleagues gathered at the ceremony to wish Lee well in her second life. Asked why so many younger players look up to her, Lee answered: "Because I didn't do anything." She explained: "I think it's because I never tried to enforce a hierarchy and just tried to be like a friend to them." Asked to leave a word for the younger players, Lee said she hoped they would not fixate on the ball. "Whether it drops in the hole or not, whether it goes into the rough or stays on the fairway — I hope they don't dwell on it too much, and instead think, 'If the ball runs away, where is it going to go?'"
Lee once said that beating others was not her goal, a remark that led many to question whether she lacked a competitive streak. "It's not my opponent I hate losing to — it's myself," she said. "If I'm one stroke back or in contention and I fail to make the swing I prepared, that means I lost to myself. I just don't have a competitive drive aimed at other people. The one aimed at myself is enormous."
Asked to put a score on her playing career, Lee said, "1,000 out of 100." She added: "I've been on the regular tour for 17 years, so for a while I'm going to rest like someone out of work." Having earned a ski instructor's license earlier this year, she smiled and said, "I'm waiting for it to get cold so I can head to the slopes."
