Professional Career
Dubbed the "Michael Jordan of three-cushion billiards" at the time of his arrival in the United States, Lee already had eight Korean national titles under his belt. Lee promptly went on to dominate three cushion billiards in the US, winning twelve consecutive United States Billiard Association National Three-cushion Championships, from 1990 to 2001. At the 2002 Championships, his impressive run came to an end when he was defeated by Pedro Piedrabuena in the finals of the tournament. Aptly, Piedrabuena received his early training in billiards from none other than Lee.
Also in 2002, Lee finished 2nd in Three-cushion event of the Asian Games where he was bested by Deuk-Hee Hwang, another Korean cue artist.
Lee also won the coveted 1993 BWA World Three-cushion Championship held in Ghent, Belgium - becoming the first American to win a world title in the sport in forty years. He almost won it again in 1999 but fell short to Dick Jaspers.
Lee holds the world record for the highest game average in three-cushion. In a tournament, he achieved a 12.5 average by making 50 points in only 4 innings. His highest run is 28.
As a player, Lee's ambition was "making billiards beautiful in America", – restoring the recognition and competitive level of three-cushion in that part of the world – but he did not live to fulfill it, as he died in 2004 due to stomach cancer.
On 15 May 2007, Lee was inducted into the BCA Hall of Fame.
Read more about this topic: Sang Lee
Famous quotes containing the words professional and/or career:
“Three words that still have meaning, that I think we can apply to all professional writing, are discovery, originality, invention. The professional writer discovers some aspect of the world and invents out of the speech of his time some particularly apt and original way of putting it down on paper.”
—John Dos Passos (1896–1970)
“My ambition in life: to become successful enough to resume my career as a neurasthenic.”
—Mason Cooley (b. 1927)