If anyone doubts the international nature of golf at its highest levels, take a look at the results from Saturday’s final round of the LPGA’s Lotte Championship at Ko Olina.

The 14 players in the top 10 including ties represent eight countries, headed by Minjee Lee from Australia, who charged from five strokes back to start the final round and win.

If that’s not enough diversity, consider that the Lotte’s five winners since its inception are all natives of different countries.

That variety is also intercontinental — Australia (Lee was born in Perth) joins Asia (Ai Miyazato of Japan and Sei Young Kim of Korea), Europe (Suzann Pettersen of Norway) and North America (Michelle Wie of the United States).

Some year a South American may crash the party here — after Rio de Janeiro hosts it in a few months. It may take a while, but the reintroduction of golf as an Olympic sport this August should give the game a boost at least in Brazil.

Lee’s immediate focus late Saturday afternoon was making it to the airport in time for her flight to San Francisco and the LPGA’s next stop. But she admitted to some excitement about the Olympics.

She was projected to move up from 17 to 12 in the Women’s World Golf Rankings. The top 15 qualify automatically (aside from the limit of four per nation that won’t affect Lee), and she also stands a good chance of making it if she’s in the top 60 on July 11.

“Really excited,” said Lee, whose idol, Karrie Webb, carried the Australian flag at the 2000 Sydney Games. “I think the Olympics is going to be great. Just the atmosphere is going to be totally cool. So, yeah, I’m really looking forward to it.”

Lee turns 20 next month; if you were to pick a teenager to win this event it probably would’ve been her good friend, world No. 1 Lydia Ko, 18. But the first three rounds in the 70s left Ko tied for 23rd after Saturday’s 69.

Since Pettersen’s victory (she was 32 when she won in 2013), each succeeding champion has been younger than the one previous.

“I think the last couple of years we kind of saw a lot of the younger girls come out and really play well. It’s a strong and young … group of players coming up,” Lee said. “Lydia, Brooke (Henderson), Sei Young. Everyone is like under 25, so that’s really young.”

So is U.S. Women’s Open champion In Gee Chun, 21, who was also in contention Saturday until a short putt on 18 did her in. She’d forced a four-way tie momentarily on the back nine; Su-Yeon Jang’s eagle on No. 13 put her in the hunt, too.

Tough third-round leader Katie Burnett untied it quickly with her birdie. “I don’t think I gave it away by any means,” she said.

But the odds were someone from the young posse would catch and pass her. Burnett blinked with a bogey on No. 16 that opened the door for Lee, who steamrolled the back nine and then practiced for a playoff that would not materialize.

This wave of youngsters doesn’t seem fazed by much of anything. They’re almost as likely to smile after flubbed shots as great ones. Maybe it’s because they got their first wins out of the way early; in a sense they’re playing with house money.

And they’re having fun, competing with each other.

“Just being around the girls your age, I think they’re all our rivals pretty much,” Lee said. “You want to beat each other. That’s going to motivate. We’re going to motivate each other by that way.

“It was a really chill week.”

Reach Dave Reardon at dreardon@staradvertiser.com or 529-4783. His blog is at Hawaiiwarriorworld.com/quick-reads.