Min Woo Lee to play Masters with broken finger after freak gym accident

Australian golfer Min Woo Lee has revealed he will play the Masters with a broken finger after suffering a bizarre injury in the gym last week.

Lee also heads into the first major of the year with an untimely bout of flu, but remains optimistic after explaining exactly how he broke the wedding finger in his right hand.

“I dropped a stupid bell on my hand,” he said after playing nine holes around Augusta National on Tuesday with fellow countrymen Adam Scott, Jason Day and Cameron Smith.

“Last week I was at the gym on Saturday. I was just doing like a side bridge glute thing and it was literally my last rep, last set thing, and I threw the stupid bell down and somehow cut off my right ring finger. Broken.

“So I went to the doctor and I thought it was okay because I could move it. It was just red. I thought it would be fine. Then they came in and said, ‘You broke it.’

“So a lot of worries. This is the first time this has been told to the public. We didn’t know as a team whether to tell it or not, and I felt like I had to tell people because there was a lot of pressure on me to play well.”

The 25-year-old is bidding to join his LPGA Tour star sister Minjee as a major winner and claims he can still challenge for the green jacket despite injury and illness. But the West Australian admits he will have to dig deep.

“You’ll hear it in my voice: I’m not 100% yet,” Lee said. “Other than that I actually feel very good. It could have been much worse. I’m quite happy to stand here and especially play nine holes and give 100% to it.

“I mean, [the] the recovery was wonderfully good. I’ve connected it now. On Friday I hit my first shot of the past week, so my first full driver. Honestly, it’s actually amazing how quickly the recovery was.

“It was bruised, still swollen, but actually not that painful, which is really strange. Somehow I’m recovering very well, so I’m trying to rise and rise as much as I can.”

The injury hasn’t even stopped the West Australian from lifting weights.

“I went to the gym as much as possible last week. Apparently I didn’t do that exercise,” he said. “Every time I looked at that stupid 20-pound bell, yeah, I gave him a death stare.”