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Story: Golf

Danny Lee and his mother, 2008

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Danny Lee and his mother, 2008

Fifteen-year-old Danny Lee plays from a bunker on his local Wairākei golf course, near Taupō, in 2008. Watching is his mother, Sujin Seo, who arrived in New Zealand from Korea when her son was eight. When this photo was taken, Lee had recently become the youngest-ever winner of the US Amateur Championship. He turned professional the following year after becoming the youngest-ever winner on the European Tour. In 2015 he won the Greenbrier Classic in West Virginia. In 2023 he pocketed $6.3 million after winning a LIV Golf tournament in Tucson, Arizona.

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New Zealand Herald

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by Alan Gibson

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How to cite this page

Garry Ahern, Golf – New Zealand golf in the early 21st century, Te Ara – the Encyclopedia of New Zealand, https://teara.govt.nz/en/photograph/39282/danny-lee-and-his-mother-2008 (accessed 25 June 2026).

Story by Garry Ahern, published 20 November 2012, updated 1 September 2016.