Grace Lee is sinking putts and setting records on the Gonzaga Women’s Golf team

Golf has long been called a “gentleman’s game.”

You’re expected to shake your playing partner’s hand before the first tee shot and again after the final putt drops, no matter how well or poorly you played. Not only should you uphold honesty and integrity with every shot, but you’re also asked to respect the course on which you’re playing: rake the bunkers after use, fill your divots and fix your (and others’) pitch marks on the green. Don’t talk or even move during another player’s backswing and don’t walk through another player’s line on the putting green. 

Golf is more than just a sport; it’s a study in willpower, goodwill, mental toughness and moral uprightness. It’s apt, then, that one of the star players on the Gonzaga Women’s Golf Team is named Grace. 

At 9 years old, Grace Lee picked up a golf club for the first time, and she’s yet to put them down. 

Her father had been taking her brother to a local course for some time before Lee asked to join them one day.

“My dad told me I had a really natural swing,” Lee says. “It motivated me to keep practicing.”

That next season, Lee entered her first tournament and placed second right out of the gate. It was a sign of things to come as she’d go on to have a great junior golf career and an even better career while playing on Bellevue High School’s golf team. She collected four varsity letters, a fourth-place finish at the 2021 WSGA (now WA Golf) Women’s Amateur and finished her time playing junior golf with nine top-10 finishes on the circuit. 

“The [American Junior Golf Association] tournaments are the most memorable,” Lee says. “There were a lot of different places I was able to travel to and visiting new states and meeting new people and being able to play, that was the best part.”

When it came time to choose where to play college golf, Lee had options, but ultimately chose Gonzaga University because it was the perfect combination of athletics and academics for her. 

Joining the team as a freshman in 2022, Lee competed in her last tournament as a Gonzaga golfer this past month at the Wyoming Cowgirl Classic and her final WCC Women’s Golf Championship last week, in which she placed T2 (tied for second place) individually and Gonzaga placed seventh overall as a team. 

Since enrolling at Gonzaga in fall 2022, Lee says her game has improved with practice and the support of coaches like Victoria Fallgren-Murphy, a former Gonzaga golfer-turned-assistant women’s golf coach.

“I first got to watch Grace when I was on the recruiting trail when she was a freshman or a sophomore [in high school],” Fallgren-Murphy says. “I immediately identified her as a player that I knew would make a great contributor to our team and a great Zag.”

And she was proven right almost immediately when Lee carded the best round of the 2022-23 season (a 4-under 67) at the Rainbow Wahine Invitational in Kapolei, Hawaii. Lee also placed fifth at the WCC Championship that season and was named WCC Freshman of the Year.

Since getting off to a hot start, Lee hasn’t cooled off a bit, collecting her first win during her sophomore year and shooting a career low 62 at the Coeur d’Alene Invitational and finishing the event at a career best 13-under-par total for the tournament. 

In October 2025, Lee was named the WA Golf Women’s Player of the Year through her exceptional play in amateur golf throughout the Northwest during the 2025 season, winning the Washington Women’s Amateur in June and advancing to the round of 16 in the PNGA Women’s Amateur.

Fallgren-Murphy says when looking for potential players to join the team, she looks for people who are playing with joy, having fun and bringing energy to the course.

“It’s not just about mechanics and swing position and playing ‘golf swing,’” she says. “They have to be open to the game and not just hyper-focusing on the mechanics of it.”

Often, golfers who compete at high levels can get stuck thinking too hard about how they’re swinging the golf club and lose sight of what makes golf such a special game: knowing each shot is a new opportunity. 

Lee says she’s more of a feeling player than a technical player, meaning she finds a certain movement or position that “feels” good in her swing and runs with it naturally. There’s no need for her to figure out the science behind why she should move her arms a certain way and how that will impact her swing — most of it comes naturally.

Lee cites her chipping as an area she’s been working on improving over the past year or so, saying it’s definitely improved with detail-oriented practice and a steady routine. She looks to world No. 1 women’s professional golfer Nelly Korda for inspiration.

“One of the great things about Grace is that she’s always been consistent,” Fallgren-Murphy says. “She’s always been all in on her work ethic, her enthusiasm, passion and desire to practice, play and compete. From her freshman year to now, she’s definitely matured and come out of her shell. She’s never going to be the most talkative, bombastic person in any group, but you can tell that she’s more comfortable in her skin, in her place in the team, giving her input and building relationships with other players.”

Lee’s senior year started and ended nicely. It began by winning the Kalispel Invitational in September and capped off with a win at the Red Rocks Invitational in Arizona. She also currently holds the record for the lowest season scoring average in program history (72.69) for her efforts during the 2024-25 season and the second-best career scoring average in program history (73.40). 

“She sets a great example for her fellow players,” Fallgren-Murphy says. “She’s left a huge mark on the program, and we’re excited to see where she goes off to and what she achieves in life.” 

Golf isn’t just about hitting shots, holing putts and winning tournaments; it’s also about how the game can fundamentally change you, and Lee understands that sentiment as well as any other lover of the game. 

“College golf has really helped me understand my game a little bit better,” Lee says. “It was mentally challenging adjusting to college and golf and school, but that also pushed me to grow as a person on and off the course.”