Lee Is Improving More Than His Short Game : Golf: Valencia sophomore is also mastering the English language.

In the midst of what was shaping up to be John Lee’s best round of the high school golf season, he could think of only one thing.

After 11 holes, Lee, a sophomore from Valencia, was four-under par; the Southern Section individual title was within reach.

Was he nervous?

Nope. Lee had something more basic in his mind.

“I was hungry, very hungry,” Lee said.

Lee had started his round at Canyon Country Club in Palm Springs without breakfast because the snack bar wasn’t open. Now that noon was approaching, he asked his coach, John Winek, to get him something, anything to eat.

So Winek bought Lee an apple, several cookies and a soft drink.

“I think that was my big mistake--feeding him,” Winek said later, laughing.

Lee, now with a slight stomach ache, bogeyed the 12th hole and had a double bogey on the 13th, before finishing with five pars. His one-under 71 put him in third place behind Tiger Woods of Western (68) and Chad Wright of Ventura Buena (70).

It still was a breakthrough round for Lee, and it established him as a favorite in the CIF-Southern California Golf Assn. individual championship today at Stockdale Country Club in Bakersfield.

“I think he’s got good mental toughness about him,” Winek said. “Even if he has a couple of tough holes, he never gives up.”

Lee, 16, has faced and is starting to master a challenge more difficult than can be found on a golf course: the English language.

Only two years ago, he and his family moved from Korea to Orange County and if not yet fluent in English, Lee is on his way.

He and his family investigated local high schools, before picking Valencia largely because, Lee said, there weren’t many other native Koreans whom he could use as language crutches.

Lee needed total immersion in the language, and with the help of the Valencia ESL program and private tutoring, he has made rapid progress. He says he understands about 70% of what his English-speaking friends say.

His own English comes in short, sometimes-awkward sentences, but he has little trouble getting his point across.

“He’s doing very well,” said Jimmy Lee, a cousin who is a sophomore golfer at Tustin High. “It was pretty rough for him during the first year, but now it’s pretty nice.”

His golf game is progressing nicely as well. At the suggestion of his father, Il Beom, Lee started playing about four years ago at a driving range near the family home in Seoul.

Lee quickly took to the game and soon after, his father decided to move the family to California to give John better opportunities to learn golf.

Money wasn’t a problem--Lee’s father owns a large hotel in Seoul. The family moved into a house near Alta Vista Country Club and joined the club.

As a freshman, Lee soon became Valencia’s top golfer and finished second to Woods in the Orange League individual final. At the Southern Section individual championship, he lost a playoff for one of the final spots in the CIF-SCGA tournament.

Winek said Lee has improved this season because he works as hard as anyone in the program since Chris Tidland, who won the sectional individual title as a junior in 1989.

It doesn’t hurt that Lee can hit a ball farther than the average high school player.

“He averages, he likes to say, about 280 yards,” Winek said. “He can put the ball out there. I’ve seen him hit the ball 320 yards without straining.”

Lee, who is nearly 6 feet, has learned when to hold back and has improved his short game. By chance, he also received some sage advice in January.

Lee was hitting at the range at Arrowhead Country Club, where he takes lessons, when Dave Stockton, captain of the last U.S. Ryder Cup team and PGA senior tour member, happened by. Stockton suggested that he change his grip and Lee says he has noticed an improvement.

But Lee is impatient with his equipment. Winek says Lee has switched irons four or five times during the season. Lee admits he has four sets of irons, six putters and more than 10 drivers in his closet. Winek has suggested that he stick with one set to give himself a chance to adjust, but Lee isn’t entirely sold on the idea.

“If I play bad with my Ping Zings, I want to change again,” Lee said.