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Sport
Murray Wenzel

Min Woo running hot but empty on RQ return

Min Woo Lee is back in Brisbane for the second time in 2022 and hunting a PGA Championship win. (Darren England/AAP PHOTOS) (AAP)

A bleary-eyed Min Woo Lee admits he'll need a couple of good night's sleep.

But his form's so good he doesn't mind that a never-ending golfing summer has brought him back to Royal Queensland for the second time this year.

The 24-year-old was the recent Scottish Open winner and trump card of January's low-key, COVID-19 impacted Australian PGA Championship.

He's back after a year juggling US and European tour events and in superb touch, although this time relinquishing centre stage to returning "big boys" Adam Scott, Cameron Smith and Marc Leishman.

Lee was 12th in the DP World Tour's finale in Dubai which finished on Sunday and by Tuesday was hitting balls ahead of Brisbane's season-opening event co-sanctioned by the European Tour.

"Not even (24 hours)," he replied when asked about his day-long off season.

"Tired ... didn't get much sleep.

"It was funny; all the DP World people, my friends, were all done and having a few drinks.

"I've got to wait a couple of weeks to rewind and chill out.

"But it's all good; I'm happy to be here. The last couple of months have been awesome.

"I wanted to play better, then the good stretch happened."

That good stretch included an eighth-place finish in South Africa a week ago, which came after back-to-back third places in Spain where he went shot-for-shot with local favourite Jon Rahm.

Tied 21st at the Open Championship and 14th at the Masters, he expects the large galleries in Brisbane from Thursday to fuel his tank.

"The crowd was amazing back then (in January) and will be even better and it'd be nice to be drawn with the big boys," he said.

"I really enjoyed my time at the Majors; the Masters is a golfer's dream, even as a spectator my parents loved it.

"It was one of those weeks, just surreal and hopefully I can click what happened there to (replicate it) here."

They'll all be chasing defending champion Jed Morgan though, who finished 22 under and won by a tournament-record 11 strokes in January.

"Old Jeddo has a pretty good record around here," Smith said of Morgan.

"He knows the course really well but it's probably playing a little bit different than it was in January.

"It's looking really good, as good as I've seen."

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