How Danny Lee became a contender

Danny Lee acknowledges the crowd at the John Deere Classic this morning. Photo / Getty

It may have taken him a few years, but Danny Lee has broken through on the PGA Tour.

Last week's win at the Greenbrier Classic was today followed up with a tie for third at the John Deere Classic to give Lee a massive boost in his quest of being a mainstay on the PGA Tour leaderboards.

After 99 PGA Tour events, the hugely promising Kiwi has delivered on his potential, with his last two results seeing him retain his PGA Tour card for the next two seasons as well as qualifying for a host of big tournaments, including next weeks' Open Championship at St. Andrews.

Lee is currently set to rise to the giddy heights of fourth place in the FedEx Cup rankings, while he is also tipped to crack the top 65 in the Official World Golf Rankings when released tomorrow.

How has Lee gone from being a player who before 2015 had notched just two top 10 finishes on the PGA Tour, to a bonafide contender and potential Presidents Cup pick?

There are three key elements to his game which have undergone mammoth improvement this season.

Approach Play

Lee has never been a big hitter off the tee, which makes his play with his irons so crucial.

Lee makes up for ranking 155th in driving distance by placing 17th in his approaches to the green - on average ending up 33.6 feet away from the pin. In 2014, he ranked 103rd in this category, highlighting the major improvements he's made.

The Kiwi number one also ranks inside the top 20 in approaches from everywhere between 50 yards and 175 yards from the pin, while he has proven to be excellent at recovering from the rough. Lee also has 15 holeouts from off the green so far this season (the fifth most on the PGA Tour), after having only nine all of last season.

Additionally, Lee's bunker play has been superb, making par or better on 62.6% of the times he's found the bunker. That puts him 11th on the PGA Tour, after last year being ranked a woeful 151st, a major leap which has been crucial to his new success.

Danny Lee's bunker shots have been excellent in 2015.

Putting

If you're going to stick your approach shots close to the pin, you might as well sink the putts as well, and Lee has made big leaps in his putting in 2015.

Partially as a result of his improved iron play, Lee ranks 13th in putts per round, at 28.20. Last year, he came in 107th in that statistic. 42.8% of his ventures to the green end in one-putts, which rates 14th on the tour - again a massive improvement on last season's efforts, where he ranked 95th.

Lee also fares well in stats such as strokes gained on the green (35th this season, 70th last season) and putting average per hole (ninth this season, 97th last season).

He's proven especially adept at rolling in putts from the 10-15 foot range, a reason for why the Kiwi has recorded the most birdies on the PGA Tour this season, with 355.

Performance on par threes

With Lee's aforementioned improvements with his irons and putter taken into consideration, it makes perfect sense that he would be dominant on par three holes.

In fact, dominant might be underselling Lee's displays on par threes this season, being the second best player on tour when tackling the shortest holes, with a scoring average of 2.95.

It is another noticeable improvement from 2014, where he ranked a lowly 141st.

Lee also has found par fives to his liking, rating as the 45th best, while par fours have been more of a struggle, coming in 96th.

If Lee can continue to make improvements at the rate we've witnessed this season, there could be greater accomplishments soon to come in his extremely promising career.