Kapalua, Maui, Hawai‘i – Of the many timeless lessons Min Woo Lee potentially learned at the Texas Children’s Houston Open, two will ring true forever.

The first: It’s as hard as they say it is to win on the PGA TOUR.

The second: Pride matters.

Lee won for the first time on TOUR with a 20-under 260 at Memorial Park Golf Course. He shot 66-64-63-67 through wind, rain, mist and sun on a burly and celebrated municipal golf course built almost a century ago and retouched in 2019 by Tom Doak. He joined seven other players in TOUR history to make the Texas Children’s their first win.

It was not easy. It was not comfortable. It was not without drama and stress. Lee held a commanding four-stroke lead after three rounds. He played steady golf on a filmy, gray Sunday afternoon with rising breezes – a deliberate, plodding pace, nothing spectacular, nothing devastating, turning in 2-under 33. But others around Lee were indeed playing spectacular golf. Gary Woodland pushed with an 8-under 62. Scottie Scheffler shoved with a 63. Rory McIlroy shot 64.

Other than an up-and-down par from 87 yards at the par-5 eighth hole, having taken an unplayable lie after a wayward tee shot, Lee cruised safely through his round until the 16th hole. Back-to-back birdies at the par-4 12th and 13th holes had pushed his lead to four shots. But that margin had long dissipated by the time Lee pushed his drive at the par-5 16th into a massive pond on the right. He played his third from the tee. The result was his only bogey of the day.

It came at an awful time for Lee. It seemed to bring Woodland, Scheffler and a host of other players back into the tournament.

“That’s why Sundays are so tough,” Lee said. “You know people are creeping. You know people are attacking.”

Lee faced a crucial juncture as he walked up the 16th fairway to his ball. He knew Scheffler was making a run. The world No. 1 was in the group right in front of him. Lee couldn’t rely on experience to pull him through. In 55 starts, he had yet to win on TOUR. But he could remind himself of how well he’d played since Thursday. He could take pride in that. He kept his head and tried not to panic.

“It was a very mentally grinding day,” said the winner, who earned 500 FedExCup points and moved to 16th on the season-long standings. “But I’m super proud to win.”

The 26-year-old Australian, a wizard with his wedges and one of the longest drivers in the game, said he felt the many eyes that were on him through the last two rounds at Memorial Park. Their gaze enveloped him. He has, after all, long been the subject of conversations about young stars on TOUR who were destined to win. The question was when. Now it seemed like the entire city of Houston (the crowds Sunday were especially big and throaty) was watching.

“I always felt like I had the assets to win,” Lee said. “It was just, ‘Can you do it, mentally?’”

The answer was yes.

His sister, LPGA player Minjee Lee, did a video call with her brother shortly after he’d won. Their mother got on the phone. She was crying. Lee talked to his father, who played golf Sunday too, just for not as much money, not for FedExCup points, not for the exemption and certainly not for history. His visit with his family was the kind of conversation Lee had dreamed of having with them. It was as affirming as he’d imagined.

It was all about pride and love and belief. It not about specific details, like the par on the final hole that assured Lee’s win.

They’ll surely talk about that someday. Lee can tell them about his surprise when his approach from 155 yards ambled through the massive green at the 18th hole and settled in the fringe, more than 50 feet from the cup. That’s when it felt like the tournament just might slip. That’s when it felt like Woodland and Scheffler, who had finished at 19-under 261, might want to prepare for a playoff.

Lee can tell his sister and parents that he took some deep breaths. That he slowed it down and thought it through. He considered chipping the ball – “I would have chipped that probably nine of 10 times if I had a match or I was just at home playing.” But this wasn’t that.

He liked the lie. “But it was very hard to judge the pace,” he explained. He needed to hit his ball hard enough through the longer grass, but not so hard that it caught the slope on the left side of the hole and tumbled so far that it gave him a 10-footer to win for the first time.

It was a lot to think about. Lee tried to clear his head.

He chose putter. It was, in the end, an iconic choice on a municipal golf course – putter from off the green, the famous “Texas wedge,” as they call it in the Lone Star State. But he would never tell his family that he wanted to pay homage to a hacker’s play. He’ll tell them that it was the right club at the right time.

“The reliable choice,” he called it, with conviction.

His ball stopped 8 inches from the cup.

“I was very happy to see it go very close,” Lee said.

And that’s the final part of the story he’ll tell his family about how he learned how hard it is to win on TOUR — spoken with authority.

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