Rachel Lee is ready to put a season’s worth of lessons learned to good use at this week’s Women’s NSW Open Golf Championship at Magenta Shores, aiming to be the top of the class this week.
The 16-year-old had a breakout year in 2023, including wins in both the Australian Junior and Senior Interstate Series, a maiden WPGA Tour win in the Women’s NSW Open Regional Qualifying event at Mollymook, grabbing the opening round lead at the Women’s Australian Open in December, strokeplay honours in the NSW Amateur in January , and a brace of Junior titles for good measure.
Success has brought rewards, but Lee is not resting on her laurels and knows her elocution in the sport is just beginning.
“If I want to reach my peak, I must become more confident. Confidence is important to me, but so is having fun.”
This week, however, the Year 11 student is ‘back in the books’ learning all she can in her first foray against the best of the Ladies European Tour.
After just nine holes of practice on the testing Magenta layout, Lee has already gone to school on her competition this week, banking a few nuggets of information.
“Everyone’s a good player out here, It’s going to be a pretty challenging week.”
“They plan out the whole course with their caddy. They know the entire course, where the wind is, and how to play it safely.
“I listened to everything they said. It was eye-opening.”
Lee said she felt her game shaped up well against the unfamiliar opposition; however, she admitted that compared to her practice round opponents, she had a lot of work to do in a few areas.
“My short game could improve compared to theirs, but I’ve been working on my pitching a lot and picking better landing spots.”
Lee’s other challenge for the week is not only learning all she can from some of the sport’s best but keeping on top of her year 11 studies at Endeavour Sports High.
“Year 11 is a little more challenging than year 10, there’s a lot more work,
“I don’t really think about homework when I’m on the course; I’m not a big fan of it, but I know I do need to catch up on it.
“Sometimes my teachers are not very happy,” she smiled. “But they’ll be fine.”
