Minjee Lee said she was feeling "a little jelly all day". 

She was referring to nerves, the sorts you would expect when staring down the biggest moment of your career and the opportunity to fulfil a lifelong ambition.

On top of that, there was the small matter of a world record pay cheque on offer — a tidy $2.5 million reward for keeping her cool.

Lee admitted after the fact that she had been feeling the weight of the moment. But if she hadn't said so, you never would have known.

Her performance in the final round of the 2022 US Women's Open at Pine Needles must rank among the greatest in Australian golf history. Lee was brilliant in establishing her 54-hole lead, but the mental strength and physical skill required to close out the victory as she did is hard to quantify.

The US Open, in both the men's and women's division, is famous for being brutal. The ground staff set out to make the test the toughest in golf — that means pins in outrageous positions, treacherous rough and punishing slopes and run-offs around the greens.

The whole idea is to test every single element of a golfer's game, safe in the knowledge the best will naturally rise to the top.

Minjee Lee rose to the top. She lapped the field. For this one week at least, she conquered the game.

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Lee has long been on a path towards golfing greatness, her journey from precocious talent at Royal Fremantle Golf Club to the best amateur in the world filled with steely wins like this one.

Her breakout win as a pro came just last year, as she shed the unwanted "best player never to win a major" tag with a victory at the Evian Championship.

But that came in vastly different circumstances to that one. On that day, Lee caught fire for the final round to come from seven shots back and win in a playoff.

It was a "right place, right time" sort of win, when the stars align and a supremely talented player happens to make a special day count.

This win at the US Women's Open was as much a mental test as a golfing one. Lee had to play with the burden of knowing every player in the field was chasing her, waiting for a single slip up.

Just last year, American Lexi Thompson led the US Women's Open by five shots with 10 holes to play. She was beaten by the occasion, and after capitulating on the back nine Thompson failed to even qualify for the playoff.

Golf's history — hell, even Australian golf's history — is littered with such stories. There isn't a golfer on the planet who hasn't stood on the precipice of some sort of success and feared what failure might look like.

All of which just makes wins like this more impressive. Minjee Lee, at just 26 years old, stood up to the moment like Karrie Webb or Tiger Woods would have.

Speaking to ABC Radio Perth, Lee's coach Ritchie Smith said that sort of mentality has been a training focus.

"We've known for a long time that she has the talent and she's got the work ethic, but I think belief and the ability to handle the situation where she's the drawcard has been a big project of hers," Smith said.

True to form, Lee was stone cold. Relentless. She never made two mistakes in a row.

She opened with two scorching birdies to kill the dreams of her nearest competitors, and then systematically chiselled out the victory from there.

The specific parts of Lee's game she has worked most on over the past few years all came to the fore when it mattered — the extra distance off the tee she has discovered kept her in front of Mina Harigae all day, and her putting was for the most part exquisite.

By the time Hannah Green was tipping champagne over Lee's head on the 18th, it was difficult to fashion an argument that the "kid from Perth" — as her brother Min Woo Lee called on her Twitter after the win — wasn't the best golfer on the planet.

"It's the biggest event in women's golf … she wants to be a legend of the game and to win that is a big step forward," Smith said.

"She's almost as successful as Ash Barty in that Ash Barty won three majors, and Minjee's at two now.

"She's trying to catch Ash and she's trying to catch Karrie [Webb]."

Lee has become an ice-cold assassin at the very top of the game. And she's only just getting started.

Greatness awaits Minjee Lee.