This week, Lee takes part in the second Ballatine's Championship at Pinx Golf Club on Jeju Island, South Korea. This will be his first time in this event. Due to the competition being six weeks later in the year (than last year), it's expected to be tough in the rough, so accuracy from the tees will play a big part in course strategy. The tournament, once again co-sanctioned by the European Tour, Asian Tour and Korea PGA, has expanded the field to 156 players.
Lee, who will be 36 on Friday, is now 15th in World Ranking and 32nd in the Race to Dubai.
In his interview on Tuesday Lee said, "This is my first visit. It's difficult to get here. Spent 31 hours from home yesterday trying to get here. Once I got here, it seems like a great place. It's nice to be here and experiencing another part of Asia. I've heard good reports about the golf course, and I'm looking forward to it. I think it's going to be windy by all accounts, so that will test everybody and I think the rough's been growing a bit, with it being a bit later in the year this year. So should be an interesting week".
When asked what the highlight of his trip was, Lee replied, "A high point was getting here. The high point was being alive when we got here, for sure. We apparently were the only flight that tried to get in here yesterday early, I guess; lunchtime we tried to land. We had a couple of rounds in airports and sat on the Tarmac in Seoul for three hours.We flew from Shanghai. Tried to land here. Failed twice, and flew to Seoul. That was a diversion. And then gave up and heard there was a later flight and drove to the other part, and flew down about 7.55, 8.00, got in at 9.00 and to the hotel for 10.00. It was quite an eventful day.
I think there were a few worried people on the plane. I've done a lot of flying, so wasn't really worried too much.
But the funniest thing was when we landed in Seoul, the China Eastern Airlines girl must have been reading off a card, her English is probably not that good. She said: "Thank you for flying China and Eastern Airlines, we hope you had a nice flight." And everybody was green on the flight, so it was quite amusing".
Graeme McDowell and Prayad Marksaeng are grouped with Lee for the first two rounds. Lee had an early, 7.20 (GMT + 9) tee-time from the 10th on Thursday, making birdie on the first hole, but dropping a shot at the next. He made par at the following holes until he bogeyed the 17th but followed with a birdie at 18 to go out in 36. On the inward nine he birdied his last (9th) to finish 1-under for the day (71) and in T55th position on the leaderboard.
R2 -The morning players had the worst of the windy weather conditions but the afternoon players had to contend with heavy rain. Lee had a 12.20 tee-time from the 1st on Friday. Lee opened with a bogey, birdied 4 then dropped a shot at 7 and picked it up at 8 (36). Again he birdied the 10th, bogeyed 12, birdied 15 and had to settle for bogey at the next when his putt for par horseshoed out. Finishing with a bogey at the last (73), Lee had to settle for par (144) and T42nd place.
R3- He was due to have an early 7.10 tee-time from the 10th, on Saturday, in the second group out, with Prom Meesawat and Myung-Ho Kwon. Start of play was delayed by almost three hours and a combination of early-morning fog and 40mph, powerful gusts of wind in the afternoon led to almost the entire field carding scores over par. Lee had only one birdie, again at the 10th, but added five bogeys to his card for a 76. However, that moves him up to T27th place (+4) on the leaderboard.
R4 - Lee had a final tee-time of 8.30 from the 1st with Nick Dougherty and Soon-Sang Hong. A round of 74 (two birdies and four bogeys) earned him T34th position on 6-over par (294).
His prize money of €14,910 has moved Lee up to 31st in the Race to Dubai with €279,773.
