One of Tiger's Records Falls
Lee, 18 years old, won the U.S. Amateur on Sunday, defeating Drew Kittleson, a golfer on the Florida State team, 5 and 4 in the championship match. Lee is now the recordholder as youngest winner of this amateur major.
Woods was 18 years, 7 months, 29 days old when he won the first of his three consecutive U.S. Am titles in 1994. Lee is six months and 29 days younger than Woods was.
Lee will head back to New Zealand and finish up high school, then focus on the tournaments to which he gained entry with his U.S. Amateur victory: the 2009 U.S. Open and British Open. He will also receive an invitation to The Masters. He'll be able to play all three next year so long as he remains an amateur.
The AP article on the championship match relates this:
Initially, Lee downplayed his new place in the record book. Yet when a USGA official told Lee that he's likely going to be paired with Woods for the first two rounds at next year's U.S. Open, he was speechless."I'm going to beat him," Lee said, laughing.
We can now practically guarantee that Woods will return no later than the 2009 U.S. Open. He'll want to put a whuppin' on this whippersnapper. (Woods probably enjoys the kid's spunk; Woods was pretty spunky himself at this age. And still is today.)
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Comments
Danny Lee seems like a pretty cool guy. His comments are always made in a self depreciative way and he is as we like to say down under, ‘taking the pi$$’.