Min Woo Lee arrives this week at the Texas Children’s Houston Open as defending champion and with a very clear explanation about one of the issues that have affected him most on the PGA Tour: his performance in the Signature Events, the elevated tournaments, the strongest and most demanding on the regular schedule
The Australian, one of the most popular players on the circuit for his competitive profile and his popularity on social media, admitted this Tuesday that last year he struggled a lot precisely in those tournaments. Not because of his overall level, but because of how his game fitted those courses and those conditions
“If you look at my average results in the Signature Events, it was around 50th. I simply wasn’t good enough”, Min Woo Lee explained
His diagnosis was fairly clear. Lee is a long hitter, an obvious advantage on many courses, but he also admits that that power comes with less accuracy. And in the Signature, with thicker roughs and tougher preparations, that combination punished him much more than it should have. “There came a point when I preferred to play tournaments that weren’t Signature Events and do well on courses that maybe weren’t as tough”, he confessed. “You play Bay Hill or any of the Signature Events, the rough was three or four inches. If you missed the fairway by a yard, you had to get it out as best you could”
Min Woo went even further explaining why that type of setup hurt him especially: “It penalises long hitters because we aren’t as precise. I started to slow down my swing to be a bit more precise, and that’s difficult”. According to him, he felt he was going in the wrong direction. “For me, I felt I was going backwards and it wasn’t the right way”
That’s where the groundwork appeared. He discussed it with his coach and his team, they detected that the big problem was mainly in the shots to the green and decided to work on that in the preseason. “The Signature Events took their toll on me last year. I needed to be much better and much more stable. Much stronger, too”, he explained. “After the autumn we had to do something with my game”
So far, the results are proving him right. Lee has made six consecutive cuts in 2026 and in the three Signature Events already played before Houston he has recorded a 2nd at the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am, a 6th at the Arnold Palmer Invitational and a 12th at Genesis
In other words, exactly where he used to struggle, he is now starting to respond. And he himself directly links it to that technical and physical work. “Now it is starting to pay off, which is great”, he noted. “We are trying to play well in the Signature Events and in the big tournaments. It was all part of the plan”
It is striking that this reflection arrives precisely in Houston, the tournament he won last year ahead of Scottie Scheffler. That victory already had value in itself, but now it gains even more meaning because Lee lands defending the title with the feeling that he has finally found the key he was missing on the toughest stages. Houston saw him win a year ago and in 2026 finds him with an even more dangerous profile: that of a player who, besides hitting it a very long way, is also starting to feel comfortable in the tournaments where he used to struggle
