KEY POINTS:
A New Zealand Golf board member has publicly castigated leading amateur Danny Lee for his performance at the Eisenhower Trophy world teams championship.
Peter Williams said Lee had "dropped his bundle" in the final round in Adelaide on Sunday.
Lee, the reigning US Amateur champion and the world's
No 1-ranked amateur, had a final day meltdown in Adelaide on Sunday with a non-counting closing round of 11-over-par 84.
That, and the efforts of his teammates Jared Pender, who shot 81, and James Gill, 77, saw New Zealand tumble to a share of 11th after they had challenged for a top-three placing early in the final round.
The New Zealanders shelled five shots at the last hole alone, with Pender posting a triple bogey and Gill a double bogey, to plummet to 21 shots behind runaway winners Scotland.
But it was Lee's misfortune that caught the eye, as the 18-year-old dropped 10 shots in the space of six holes, starting at the ninth where he racked up a quadruple bogey nine.
"Along the way his attitude was, from all reports, far from satisfactory," Williams told Radio Sport.
"As a board member of New Zealand Golf I don't think it is any secret that the board is pretty disappointed with his performance and with the way the team has just gone backwards."
Williams said Lee's attitude had been called into question before.
"He had a disappointment on a much smaller scale earlier this year at the New Zealand under-23s in Hastings when he three-putted the last green to lose the title by one shot to Ben Campbell of Masterton.
"There was apparently not particularly gracious behaviour in the aftermath of that defeat either."
Williams suggested Lee needed to learn to control his emotions when he was not playing as well as he wanted.
"This is something he will have to learn. It was a fairly unimpressive meltdown he had on Sunday when dropping 10 shots in half a dozen holes.
"You can't be a top player at any level if you are going to have that kind of performance.
"I suspect that 10-shot leakage that he had was based not so much on technical ability but just on the fact that he completely and utterly lost his brain."
The Eisenhower Trophy in all probability marked the last time Lee will represent New Zealand as an amateur.
His US Amateur triumphs has earned him starts in next year's US Open and British Open, providing he retains his amateur status.
Lee, who has based himself in the United States for much of this year, has said he plans to turn professional after the British Open in July.
It was revealed today that Lee was at the centre of an incident at Auckland International Airport before he left for Australia.
Lee reportedly made an "inappropriate comment" about the contents of his bag, which led to him being questioned by airport authorities and police after the team checked in for a flight to Adelaide.
- NZPA
