Danny Lee wonders why ‘nobody clapped’ for him at the Masters

Adam Scott, Trevor Immelman and Danny Lee walk on to a golf course.

You may stop me if you’ve heard this one because the trio actually did play a round, the track was Augusta National and Lee — surprisingly near the top of the Masters leaderboard — laughingly relates the tale about his first time teeing it up at Augusta as an 18-year-old amateur. The New Zealander by way of South Korea also tells it with a deadpan wit that could pay dividends should this golf thing not work out and he wants to go into standup.

Except it wasn’t so funny at the time in 2009, after he cruised through 27 holes, 6-putted from 15 feet on his 28th — the 10th hole of his second round — and his playing buddies gave him the business.

“It was a nightmare,” Lee told ESPN’s Tom Rinaldi after his triumphant return to Augusta on Thursday with an opening-round 4-under 68 that gave him a share of second place, just two shots shy of 18-hole leader Jordan Spieth. “I remember I was playing with Adam Scott and Trevor Immelman, [they were] laughing at me, I was like, ‘Really guys?’”

As is the convention in such interviews, Rinaldi was intent on reviewing the highlights from Lee’s round, but Lee suggested he pump the breaks.

“You’re moving way too fast for me,” Lee quipped.

The 25-year-old, who was the youngest-ever U.S. Amateur champion at 18 years and a month (six months younger than Tiger Woods when he won the event in 1994), caught up and landed one final bad-a-boom as he explained his tricky, downhill shot from off the green at the par-3 12th.

“It was a tough putt but it was a pretty straight putt and I just made a good stroke and it went in,” said Lee.

“Nobody clapped.”

Danny Lee, ladies and gentlemen. Tied for second at 4-under early into Friday’s second round, it looks like he’ll be here all week — which may be more than his former nemeses can say.

Scott, a long-shot favorite to win his second green jacket, will start the afternoon wave exactly on the projected cut line at 4-over. Immelman, also with an afternoon tee time, was at 5-over.