Golf is a weird and wonderful game. When you're playing your best stuff it feels like you can do no-wrong but, when you're playing badly, it's like it will never end.
Certainly, it's about confidence and, in the case of two-time Ladies European Tour winner, Alison Lee, it's a certain someone who has helped her get her career back on track, with the American revealing that Masters winner, Fred Couples, is one of her biggest fans.
At the CME Group Tour Championship, the season finale on the LPGA Tour, Lee holds the lead with Japan's Nasa Hataoka, with Lee looking for her first victory on the LPGA Tour circuit after claiming the Aramco Team Series Riyadh event with a 29-under-par total.
Speaking after her second round 64 in Florida, the 28-year-old stated: "So about a couple months ago now, I played golf with Fred Couples in a pro-am. It was my first time meeting him. We played 18 holes. Afterwards he got my number and we have been texting back and forth the last couple months. Every single day, you're so good at golf. You need to believe it. I was like, oh, Freddie, it's fine. I'm okay. I don't know what you're talking about.
"He's honestly been like the biggest supporter and my No. 1 fan over the last couple months, starting kind of in Arkansas, China. Like he just was hammering into me like you need to believe. You're a good player. You need to go out there and believe you're the s**t and you can do it. I mean, it was a lot of messages every day from Freddie, not going to lie. Oh, another message from Freddie. But hammering that into me really resonated with me.
"Finally in Korea, like I slowly started to believe it. I have read the messages and I'm like going to get emotional because he's been so supportive. I mean, to see someone like that, like a legend like that watches me play golf and tell me how good I am, like it's surreal to think that he's telling me how good am. For the longest time, like I said, I didn't believe it myself. So, yeah."
A Major winner and two-time Players champion, Couples was one of the greatest golfers during the 80s and 90s, with the 64-year-old picking up 64 professional wins worldwide and sitting in the World No.1 spot for 16 weeks.
Nicknamed Boom Boom, Couples even has a nickname for Lee, with Lee stating: "He's been texting me every day after the round, good job. You're so good. I knew it. He always calls me Mrs. Monster. That's what he says. Hey, Mrs. Monster, you made all those birdies today.
"He's been amazing. He's been, yeah, my biggest fan over the last month. It's been really, really cool. I just look at my phone and says Freddie Couples and I'm like, that's weird."
