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Alison Lee stayed off the black runs on a current ski journey to Japan in an effort to keep away from something catastrophic. She couldn’t have imagined that her boyfriend’s rescue canine, a black Pomeranian aptly named Bear, can be what despatched her to the hospital.
Bear, a rescue canine who solely has a handful of tooth, managed to clamp down on Lee’s left hand in late January, leading to plenty of open wounds. Twenty-four hours after the incident, Lee woke as much as discover that her complete arm had turned pink. She went to the emergency room and was identified with lymphangitis. Medical doctors needed to lower open her hand in two locations to eliminate the an infection.
She stayed within the hospital for 2 nights and withdrew from subsequent week’s Aramco Saudi Girls Worldwide in addition to the Honda LPGA Thailand. Lee, who gained on Saudi’s Riyadh Golf Club final fall, will make her first LPGA begin Feb. 29-March 3 on the HSBC Girls’s World Championship in Singapore.
“He’s a really candy canine,” Lee insisted. “He simply will get very territorial.”
The rescue canine of her boyfriend bit Alison Lee and knocked the participant out of fee for a bit. (Photograph: Alison Lee)
The Los Angeles native was the most popular participant on the earth on the finish of 2023, profitable on the LET in Saudi Arabia and ending runner-up in her final three LPGA begins. Although admittedly burnt out on the finish of the 12 months, Lee solely wished she’d had a pair extra possibilities to try to capitalize on the momentum.
On the subject of star energy, few on tour can match Lee’s potential.
“There’s an class about every little thing she does,” mentioned Chris Mayson, the swing coach who introduced Lee out of a years-long hunch with the motive force yips.
“It’s somewhat bit like watching Rory (McIlroy) play the sport. There’s a rhythm to it that simply makes it simple on the attention.”
One of the approachable gamers on tour, Lee’s openness with the media makes it simple for followers to take an curiosity. The issue, after all, is that Lee hasn’t but constructed knowledgeable resume robust sufficient to make the most of that star potential.
Extra to the purpose: She hasn’t gained on the LPGA.
“She has that potential to seize the viewers,” mentioned UCLA head coach Alicia Um Holmes of a Bruin who gained the Annika Award, given to the nation’s high participant, as a freshman.
A six-time first-team All-American on the AJGA, Lee was a powerhouse newbie who gained LPGA Q-College in 2014. As a rookie, she performed her manner onto the Solheim Cup workforce – like Paula Creamer and Rose Zhang – however watched the early success plummet briefly order.
Lee had skilled the motive force yips previously, to the purpose she nervous that UCLA would possibly pull her scholarship. However she’d at all times discovered a option to claw herself again in a number of quick months.
By 2018, Lee had dipped to a hundred and fifty fifth on the LPGA cash record. By the point she arrived on Mayson’s follow tee, she was determined.
Mayson instantly supplied a way of calm.
“All these items begin with a technical subject,” he mentioned. “For essentially the most half, steady dangerous driving is a technical subject that turns right into a psychological subject.”
There have been moments alongside the way in which when Lee thought it is likely to be time to give up. Shut pal Michelle Wie West noticed it and will’ve seen issues going both manner.
“Sure, as a result of it received so dangerous,” mentioned Wie West of whether or not or not Lee would stroll away, “however no as a result of I at all times felt like she felt it was unfinished enterprise.”
The primary time Lee met Wie West was on the 2009 U.S. Girls’s Open when she was 14 years previous. Lee’s father had satisfied her to affix the Wie household in participant eating that week. It was Wie West’s time at Stanford that impressed Lee to proceed along with her research and social life at UCLA even after she joined the tour.
Each gamers felt it was the most effective resolution they may’ve made, getting out of the alternate actuality that tour life usually brings.
“So many weeks I’m moping round, depressed, lonely,” mentioned Lee. “It’s good to speak to associates who expertise day-to-day life so fully otherwise than me. It sort of grounds me somewhat bit.”
The frustration of a missed three-footer, for instance, melts away when a pal who teaches particular ed talks a couple of scholar who suffered a seizure in school.
Such perspective is priceless within the midst of nightmarish yips.
Wie West skilled the placing yips 3 times over the course of her profession. Stan Utley was the one who helped her escape.
“You simply black out, you lose all sensation,” she mentioned. “Having the yips is just like the wildest factor in sports activities. One thing that’s so easy, and also you simply all of a get clammy arms, begin shaking, coronary heart palpitations.”
When Wie West gained the 2014 U.S. Girls’s Open at Pinehurst No. 2, she hit a 3-wood stinger off the tee as a result of she didn’t really feel comfy with driver. One other 12 months, the previous phenom performed an enormous lower all season as a result of she couldn’t hit a draw.
“You don’t actually wish to speak about it,” mentioned Wie West of being uncomfortable over the ball. “You simply act like that is the brand new norm; fake it doesn’t exist.”
It took Lee a number of years to get her driver sorted, and early final 12 months, she struggled mightily along with her putter, saying she had the yips there, too. On the LPGA Drive On occasion in Arizona final spring, she hit 16 greens and had 38 putts.
“I hit each shot to 10 ft and walked off the inexperienced three-putting,” she recalled.
Mayson had urged Lee to see a placing coach for a very long time, however she was cussed about it till this summer season when she lastly employed Chris Cho.
Lee performed her final three occasions of 2023 on the LPGA in 56 underneath par, and that doesn’t embrace the 61-61-65 she shot in Saudi Arabia on the LET to win by eight.
“Golf is basically 95 p.c confidence,” mentioned Wie West.
To that finish, Lee factors to a number of individuals who have boosted her mentally. Mayson, she mentioned, radiates confidence. His calming presence balances out her nervous nature.
On the CME Group Tour Championship final 12 months, Lee advised the media that she performed in a pro-am with Fred {Couples} final September and that he’d develop into her No. 1 fan.
“He simply was hammering into me like, ‘It is advisable to imagine; you’re a superb participant,’ ” mentioned Lee. “It is advisable to go on the market and imagine you’re the shit and you are able to do it.”
Lee’s inner-circle additionally consists of boyfriend Trey Kidd, the kind-hearted proprietor of Bear the rescue canine. Lee and Kidd had been launched by a mutual pal close to the start of the Covid-19 pandemic. Kidd, a former faculty participant at Colorado State who now works in finance, performs off a plus-three handicap. If Lee performs from the again tees, she doesn’t have to provide him any strokes.
Lee mentioned when the 6-foot-6 Kidd hit a development spurt in junior golf, he too struggled with the motive force yips. On the subject of discovering a associate who understands Lee’s world, the Vegas resident appears to have hit the proverbial jackpot.
Along with Cho, there’s a much less apparent change in Lee’s each day routine that helped shift her focus in 2023. For the primary time since highschool, she took up leisure studying – in a giant manner.
Lee learn over 40 books in 2023. She’d get misplaced in fictional worlds created by Sarah J. Mass. The one-hour bus experience to the course in South Korea flew by as Lee immersed herself within the “Throne of Glass” sequence. When play slowed down throughout follow rounds, she’d typically received out her Kindle and browse a number of pages.
“I feel it was truthfully the most effective factor for me,” mentioned Lee, “placing myself on this various universe, and like sort of residing there so I don’t should nearly face what’s occurring now. And never that I wasn’t going through it, it simply sort of muted the entire thing.”
Alison Lee finishes primary in Riyadh 🥇🏆#RaiseOurGame | #SeeTheImpact pic.twitter.com/9IMA7bQS27
— Girls European Tour (@LETgolf) October 29, 2023
The 2024 season presents huge alternatives for Lee, who has risen to No. 18 within the Rolex Rankings. She was crushed to not make the Solheim Cup workforce final 12 months. She’s excessive on captain Stacy Lewis’ 2024 record although, and in place to doubtlessly signify the U.S. on the Paris Olympics, too.
Lee turns 29 later this month and goals to deal with this like an all-or-nothing 12 months.
No matter occurs, she’ll be open about it, as a result of as Lee seems to be round and sees gamers on tour who’re misplaced like she as soon as was, she needs them to know they’re not alone.
“I didn’t wish to be the one to speak to different women and ask them what their experiences had been like,” mentioned Lee. “I didn’t wish to see anybody. I didn’t wish to discuss to anybody. I used to be embarrassed. I felt so ashamed that I wasn’t taking part in effectively.”
However she didn’t give up.
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