Min Woo Lee and Ryan Fox earn PGA TOUR Special Temporary Membership

Min Woo Lee and Ryan Fox have earned Special Temporary Membership on the PGA TOUR following their performances at the US PGA Championship.

Lee needed a solo-27th or better while Fox required a two-way tie for 59th in the second men’s Major Championship of the season, with both players meeting those targets at Oak Hill Country Club.

A closing birdie saw Australian Lee end the week in a tie for 18th at two over, while New Zealander Fox - playing after a recent bout of pneumonia -shot a matching 71 in the final round to sit a shot further back in a tie for 23rd.

Lee, a two-time DP World Tour winner, began the year with a runner-up finish at the Abu Dhabi HSBC Championship as he narrowly missed out on his second Rolex Series title.

He followed that up with a top 15 finish in Dubai, with his performances during the DP World Tour’s Middle East Swing earning him qualification for next month’s U.S. Open, by virtue of being the top player, who is otherwise not exempt, on the Race to Dubai Rankings in Partnership with Rolex as of the May 22 cut-off.

In his third PGA TOUR start of the year, World Number 61 Lee finished in a tie for sixth at The PLAYERS Championship at TPC Sawgrass in March.

Reflecting on his performance at Oak Hill, Lee said on social media: "To my fans & friends, the support has been unreal, so many chants and shouts all week, rooting for me to do something special. Let's do it again soon. Loving the major grind, more and more."

Fox, who will also be heading to the Los Angeles Country next month as a result of being in the world’s top 60 in the Official World Golf Ranking, is another to have been a consistent performer on the DP World Tour over recent years.

The 36-year-old won twice in 2022 and finished in a career-best second place on the season-long rankings as he won the Seve Ballesteros Award after being voted Player of the Year by his fellow peers.

He has so far registered four top 20s on the DP World Tour this season, with five top 30 finishes in Major and PGA TOUR starts to help him sit in 41st place in the world rankings.

Fox said: "Solid week at the @pgachampionship for me, and this [PGA TOUR Special Temporary Membership] is pretty cool to get. Well done @minwoo27lee.”

Players in the special membership category will earn full status on the PGA Tour for the 2024 season if they earn as many, or more, non-member FedEx Cup points as the 125th placed player in the final 2022-23 FedEx Cup standings.

As part of an extended partnership between the DP World Tour and PGA TOUR announced last year, the leading ten players on the season-long Race to Dubai Rankings will earn PGA TOUR cards for the following season.