EVANS, Ga. – Mackenzie Lee did what she always does when she hits a good shot.
“Automatic tee pickup,” said the SMU junior, who then watched as her tee ball on Champions Retreat’s sixth hole landed on the green and disappeared into the hole, about 135 yards away. She thought it had rolled down a slope, but another caddie quickly broke the exciting news.
“I’m like, no way,” said Lee, who opened the Augusta National Women’s Amateur with a 4-under 68 on Wednesday. “I literally just had one last week, like you’re lying to me.”
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That’s not an exaggeration. Lee now has seven career holes-in-one, with four coming in tournaments. The most recent happened at the Clemson Invitational just last week. Lee started her second round on the 160-yard, par-3 seventh hole at Lake Keowee’s Reserve Course and jarred it with her first swing of the day.
“I was telling myself I need another warm-up because it was shotgun and we were on No. 7, all the way out there, like a 20-minute drive in the golf carts,” Lee said. “I was like, OK, let’s just try to get this on the green because [the pin is] in the front and there’s water in front of that. Yeah, it went in, and I was like, that was insane.
“But this one, you can’t really see the hole, and I was like I don’t know if it’s in, we shall see. Like no one saw it, but yeah, it was in.”
Lee’s ace at Champions Retreat is just the second in tournament history, following Bohyun Park’s hole-in-one on the eighth hole last year. What makes this even more impressive is how it sparked Lee’s remarkable finish. After playing her first 10 holes in 2 over, the ANWA first-timer caught fire, birdieing Nos. 2, 3, 5, 7 and 9 to card a second-nine, 5-under 31.
