LOS ANGELES – The most nervous Alison Lee felt Friday afternoon at Riviera Country Club was when she first caught a glimpse of her name atop the U.S. Women’s Open leaderboard.
Luckily for the 31-year-old Lee, she’s got the perfect distraction in her 13-month-old son, Levi.
“I think about him all the time,” said Lee, who is taking advantage of her hometown major championship, just her seventh start postpartum, by having her parents watch her firstborn. “I think about what he’s doing. I guess it’s like toxic mom, like, OK, is he sleeping right? Are my parents feeding him when I tell them to? It’s small things like that I think I micromanage a little bit too much.”
At last month’s Chevron Championship, Lee’s first major appearance since giving birth on April 25, 2024, Lee’s partner, Trey Kidd, brought Levi out on the 14th hole, only for Levi to shout, “Ball!” Lee was glad it was in the middle of her backswing, not an opponent’s. On Friday, Trey waited until Lee hit her approach on the par-4 18th. Levi then yelled his favorite word again before his mom got up and down for par and a second-round, 3-under 68 that moved Lee to 4 under, where she’ll enter Saturday tied with Ruoning Yin for the lead.
Six players, including major winners Jennifer Kupcho, In Gee Chun, Hinako Shibuno and Sei Young Kim, are tied for third, one shot back, while world No. 1 Nelly Korda is one of four players two off the lead.
Lee carried Levi up Riviera’s iconic staircase and into scoring, then held him briefly during her post-round interview before handing off the talkative toddler, mid answer, to Trey. Lee is still adjusting to being a mom on tour, but she’s got quite the rolodex to lean on, including fellow moms Michelle Wie West, Stacy Lewis, Pat Hurst and Juli Inkster, who won two U.S. Women’s Opens as a mother, in 1999 and 2002, and remains the last to do so.
On days where Lee has felt like she’s “drowning,” Lee replays Inkster telling her, confidently, “You can do it.”
Lee rarely logs round at home in Las Vegas, instead opting for max efficiency with her practice time. Lee’s days usually begin at 6 a.m., while Levi is still sleeping. She trains for two hours, then comes home to feed and care for Levi while Trey works remotely. During naptime, Lee heads to the course to practice, hopefully until mid-afternoon, before returning to full-time mom duties the rest of the evening.
“When I come home too, it’s like so much stuff – laundry, cleaning bottles, cleaning the house,” Lee said. “I mean, I clean the house a million times, and it still looks like a tornado went through. I think I just have to accept my house is a mess, and I can’t ever have people over. Yeah, then I just do the same thing over and over again. There are days where, if he doesn’t sleep great, it is really difficult. I’m not going to lie, there are days where I’ll just start crying because I’m so tired, like I can’t do this. I feel like over time I’ve found a good routine for myself.”
Lee was so overexerted when she made her season debut at last month’s JM Eagle LA Championship that her ball speed had dipped to 135 mph. She managed to tie for 13th, which she followed with finishes of MC, T-3, T-33. When she scouted Riv in April, it surprisingly marked the UCLA product’s sixth or so time seeing the George Thomas design; the shortest club she had into the green was an 8-iron.
“I remember thinking, oh, my God, this is so hard,” Lee said.
Despite missing half her fairways and greens on Thursday, Lee grinded to shoot under par. She’s proud of the fight she’s shown so far, especially the gritty par save Friday at the par-4 second, where she fanned her drive behind a tree, was forced to punch out to 116 yards, then ended up holing a 6-footer. She’s dropped only three shots through two days despite being the only player in the top 20 who is losing strokes off the tee.
In 45 major starts, Lee has never led after any round and owns just two top-10s. She’s not won on the LPGA, either, despite turning pro in 2015 as a decorated amateur who was a first-team AJGA All-American for six straight years as a junior player before holding the top spot in the World Amateur Golf Ranking for 16 weeks while in college.
“I feel like I’ve definitely underachieved what I could have done out here on tour,” said Lee, who’d always thought she’d stop competing once she started having kids. But after enjoying one of her best seasons and qualifying for a second Solheim Cup in 2024 – she played that event pregnant and with terrible morning sickness – Lee went on maternity leave more motivated than ever.
“I told myself, OK, I’m going to have Levi, I’m just going to do everything I can, just tell myself absolutely no regrets looking back and just try really hard for this next probably year to maybe two years, to just play the best golf I can,” Lee said, “because realistically, I feel like I’ve thought about my future a lot, and moving forward, I do want more kids. I want a bigger family. I think, if I were to have another baby, I think it would be 10 times more difficult to try and come back and play.”
Lee has accepted her journey to date, from the struggles where she didn’t know where the ball was going to the great golf that still only produced close calls.
“I was so close so many times,” Lee said. “I feel like it’s literally sometimes one shot. You just need to be lucky here and there. … I would say in a full year, unless you’re Nelly [Korda] or Scottie [Scheffler], there’s really only a handful of events where you truly, you know, you get the good wave, you have a good first round, you’re putting really well, you can see the matrix on putting green where you know it’s going to go in.”
Like last summer in Arkansas, when Lee, not even five months removed from having Levi, was tied for third after 18 holes of the weather-delayed event, then took the lead during the second round on Sunday only for the tournament to be scrapped because of inclement weather.
“I was devastated,” Lee said. “I was like this could have been my week, you know.”
Now, nine months later, Lee has another chance at what would be a long-awaited breakthrough, though this time in a major and at a course not far from where she was born in Los Angeles.
If she needs a reminder whether she can do it or not, Lee need only make one call, to Inkster.