Lee Mi-hyang leads LPGA’s Evian Championship for 3 consecutive days

Lee Mi-yang (22) has continued her lead for three consecutive days in the Evian Championship, the last major title of this season’s LPGA tour that is taking place in Évian-les-Bains in France, emerging as a dark horse.

Lee reportedly used a golf club for the first time in her life at age four. Her father, Lee Young-goo (66), said he tried to block her from playing golf, saying “You are short, and let’s not play golf.” However, Lee started playing golf as athlete as a fifth grader, saying “I want to create the most beautiful swing.”

Lee continued her strides by winning a flurry of amateur golf championships as a member of the standing national golf team for three years from 2009, when she was studying at Hampyeong Golf High School. She is relatively short at 162 cm, but displays swings so clean and tidy that they can be dubbed "the standard of swings." In 2011 as a 12th grader, she passed the LPGA tour qualifying school and secured regular membership of the tour.

Having secured a full seed on the LPGA in 2013, she failed to make the cut in seven of the 17 championships in the first year. She started to rise after winning the ISPS Handa New Zealand Open of the Ladies European Tour (LET) by beating Korean New Zealander Lydia Go (18). She then acquired her first career LPGA tour title at the Mizuno Classic last year. Since forming a team with Michael Kevin (69), the oldest of the caddies in the tour last July, she has significantly improved stability in play.

Lee’s ultimate goal is to become a LPGA Hall of Famer. He also dreams about instating a golf tournament named after her.