Leona Maguire still ace in Irish pack as record 16 tee up at K Club

Anna Foster, Sara Byrne and Aine Donegan all playing well mean all Irish hopes at the K Club do not rest on Maguire but she's still most likely source of success

Leona Maguire said she's "not really going into this week with any major expectations" at the Irish Open. Pic: Seb Daly/Sportsfile

A record 16 golfers from these shores will tee off on Thursday in the KPMG Women's Irish Open in Kildare, but it’s still Leona Maguire’s face the punters will see on all the billboards when their tickets are checked and they walk through the gates.

The Cavan golfer has been the headline act at this gig ever since it returned to the schedule in 2022. The closest she came to delivering a home winner was that very year when tying for fourth in Dromoland Castle.

Anna Foster finished second at the recent Swiss Open, Sara Byrne posted a best finish on the Ladies European Tour last weekend with the same position at the Ladies Open de France, and Aine Donegan was in the running for the PIF London Championship this month.

Maguire is not the only card the Irish have to play here, but she is still the ace.

She spoke on Tuesday here about how she had been “quite overwhelmed” by the focus and the pressure on her shoulders in those first two years, but it isn’t just maturity that has her feeling more at ease this time around.

Her attachment to the K Club means that she is well attuned to the demands around the South Course, and her struggles on the LPGA Tour this year may actually have the ironic benefit of lowering expectations. Hers and everyone else’s.

Maguire is in the midst of a major swing rebuild under new coach Sean Foley having split with her lifelong mentor Shane O’Grady at the end of last year. It has been as trying as every other golfer in history has discovered it to be.

Half of her 20 tournaments have ended in missed cuts, including four of the five majors, so she has promised herself that any last-minute and unexpected off-course demands from the local fans are not going to throw her now.

“Signing all the autographs and taking all the pictures and all of that, just learning to embrace it for what it is, not really going into this week with any major expectations and just trying to play as well as I can and see what happens.” 

The main boost has come off the course in recent weeks with Europe’s Solheim Cup captain Anna Nordqvist using one of four wild cards on Maguire for the upcoming meeting with the USA in the Netherlands in early September.

Team Europe made a visit to the Bernardus Golf course in North Brabant earlier this summer and Maguire is excited by what is a young enough home outfit as it looks to reclaim the cup two years after it was relinquished in Gainesville, Virginia.

“I was fortunate enough to be part of two winning ones my first two times and winning is definitely a lot more fun than losing,” she said with a smile.

Now would be a great time for something to click.

She has seen plenty of good in the work being done as the job of adding distance and height to her game continues. Doing that on the range and in practice is a different beast to producing it in the white heat of 18 competitive holes.

Maguire says as much herself. Maybe the hardest part of it is that her old ‘go-to’ of aiming left and “pushing it down” doesn’t work anymore. That means sticking to the process and the new routines even when it isn’t comfortable.

And every week the needs and the demands change. The course for the CPKC Women’s Open in Canada last week was tight, the rough thick. And it was long. The course this week is much shorter. The run of the ball will be longer.

“I played well in Scotland a few weeks ago and I feel like all the pieces are there, they just haven't quite clicked on any one week. There's been weeks where I've drove the ball really well, there's been weeks where I've hit it really well, and there's been weeks where I've putted well, and they just all haven't been quite there.

“It's just been a little bit inconsistent. This is probably my favourite stretch of the year. We're running into an Irish Open and a Solheim Cup, so I'm trying to enjoy these weeks as much as I can and keep it as relaxed and laidback as I can. That's generally where I've had my best golf.”