Min Woo Lee Withdraws in Delhi as a Stomach Illness Triggers Back Spasms

The most food-forward player in the Delhi field lasted five holes of his second round. Min Woo Lee arrived at the DP World India Championship for his first professional tournament in India talking about butter chicken and making chaat on camera, and left it on an Instagram story, out with a stomach illness that had triggered back spasms, Heavy reports. He was level par for the tournament when he stopped, and his week became the neatest summary of a Delhi event that has been losing players, hours and momentum since Thursday.

What did Min Woo Lee say when he withdrew?

He announced it himself, briefly and without pointing at anything. Sad to say I’ve had to withdraw from the DP World India Championship, he wrote on an Instagram story. A stomach illness triggered some tough back spasms, and I’m just not able to compete this weekend. He thanked DP World, the tournament staff and the fans for their hospitality and support, and closed with the only plan he offered: priority now is getting back to 100 percent, Heavy reports. There was no timeline, no named cause and no complaint in it. In a week when the same course has hosted a public pricing of Rory McIlroy’s appearance fee by a fellow professional, Lee’s was the plainest statement Delhi produced.

How did his two rounds in Delhi actually go?

Briefly, and better than the ending suggests. Lee opened his Indian debut with a one-under-par 71 at Delhi Golf Club on Thursday, a respectable first look at a short, tight course that punishes the loose drive far more than the short one. His second round started on Friday and stopped almost as soon as it began: five holes, played in one over par, with pars on the first and third holes, a birdie on the fourth and bogeys on the second and fifth, EssentiallySports reports. That left him at level par overall, inside the cut picture and going nowhere near home on score. He stopped because his back would not let him swing, in a round that lightning delays had already broken into pieces, with many players unable to finish their second rounds on Friday at all, Golfweek reports.

Did Lee blame the food he had been praising all week?

No, and that restraint is the detail the whole story turns on. At his October 14 press conference, Lee described easing into the local menu: Yeah, I had butter chicken last night. It’s not traditional, but I thought I would ease into it, start with something that I know and then work my way up. But it was unbelievable. It was really nice, Heavy reports. He also took part in a chaat-making session with chef Goila, and said the chaat he made was actually very, very nice, EssentiallySports reports. When the illness came, his statement named a stomach illness and nothing else. Both Heavy and EssentiallySports state plainly that he did not blame any particular dish or meal. The contrast writes the headlines by itself, a player felled by his stomach in the middle of a food week, but the only person refusing to connect those dots is Lee.

Why does the food angle follow Lee more than anyone else in the field?

Because he built a brand on it, even though the brand was never really about cooking. Lee’s catchphrase is Let Him Cook, his nickname is the Chef, and EssentiallySports notes he has said the name refers to the shots he cooks up on the course; at home, by his own account, he cooks about once a year. Delhi turned the joke literal. The tournament put its most marketable eater in a chaat session, he talked food at his press conference, and Eugenio Chacarra, who knows something about playing hurt after leading the Spanish Open on a fractured toe, was praising the butter chicken in the same media round, EssentiallySports reports. Nobody else in the field could have withdrawn with a stomach illness and had it read as a plot twist. For Lee it was unavoidable, which is probably why his statement worked so hard to say nothing beyond the medical fact.

Who else has this Delhi week already lost?

A steady procession, for three different reasons. Andy Sullivan left the tournament through illness as well, while Grant Forrest and Anthony Quayle withdrew with injuries, Heavy reports, and EssentiallySports adds Danny Willett to the list of players no longer in the field. Around the withdrawals, the week kept shrinking: a prolonged thunderstorm suspended play for five hours on the opening day, lightning interrupted both of the first two days, and players came back early on Friday to finish first rounds before starting second ones, Heavy and Golfweek report. Delhi Golf Club itself did the rest. The course is narrow, tree-lined and built to punish the aggressive line, the same accuracy test that frames the DP World Tour’s larger argument about who belongs on it in 2027. By Friday night the field was smaller, the schedule was bent, and the leaderboard belonged to the survivors.

What happens next in Delhi, and for Lee?

The tournament finishes on Sunday, October 18, and the questions it leaves are the season’s usual ones compressed into a week: who held their Race to Dubai position, and who simply held up. It is also one of the last stops before the play-offs, in a season whose background argument remains the LIV 2.0 commitment deadline and what it costs the players caught by it. For Lee there is only the recovery line from his own statement and no announced next start. A stomach illness that turns into back spasms is the kind of withdrawal that usually resolves in days rather than months, but Lee has offered no timeline and this article will be updated if he or his team gives one. What Delhi will remember him for arrived before the golf did: the press conference answer about easing into butter chicken, delivered by the one player in the field whose nickname promised he could handle the kitchen. The golf, in the end, was five holes long.