Leona Maguire is hoping that the major surgery she’s made on her game will start to pay off at the US Women’s Open the week.
The Cavan women goes to the tournament at the Riviera Golf Course ranked 72nd in the world – a far cry from her top 10 place three years ago.
To that end she has turned to Tiger Woods’ former coach, Sean Foley, as she bids to arrest a slide down the rankings in an effort to find more distance and accuracy with her long game.
Maguire just made it under the cutoff point of the top 75 in world golf to secure her eighth appearance at the US Open and she’s hoping that her off-season changes can start to pay dividends.
Speaking to RTÉ Sport, she said: “I think it’s tougher every year and you very much have to elevate your game every year or you get left behind. I’ve made some changes over the off-season. I’ve made some changes to my golf swing and those things take time.
“I’m happy with where it’s at. It’s just trying to get the consistency of it up and there’s been enough good in there to see the benefit in that even if there is some growing pains with it.
“It’s just a case of putting all the pieces together, driving it better this year, driving it longer, driving it straighter. There was some sort of inefficiencies in my swing that anytime I tried to get stronger or faster, then it just went more offline.”
“I started with Sean at the end of last year. It was at a crossroads at the end of the year,” Maguire said. “I had a lot of middle of the pack finishes last year and I was scratching my head going, ‘what’s next, how do I improve?’
“Do I settle for finishing 48th, 58th on the money list and week in, week out, or do I want to actually get back into the top 10 and, and contend week in, week out?”
Maguire’s season so far has been mixed as she’s looking to put all the parts of her game together successfully.
In April she finished as the runner-up in the Aramco Championship at Shadow Creek but followed that up by not making the cut in her next three tournaments.
She was tied for 33rd at the Kroger Queen City Championship and improved on that with a ninth placed finish at the ShopRite LPGA last time out.
Now she’s looking for everything to come together at the season’s first major.
“It’s nice to be going into some greens with a club less. There’s been a few golf courses we’ve gone back to this year that I’ve been able to carry a few bunkers that I wasn’t able to carry before. That definitely makes a difference in terms of setting up some more opportunities.
“I probably dropped a few more shots this year than I would have liked, just with some of the inconsistencies with the swing changes, but I’ve made more birdies. So that’s always a promising sign.
“Ultimately most weeks you need to be making sort of 16 to 20 birdies if you want to be in contention.”
Maguire will have plenty of competition at the Riviera Golf Course with a field full of talent eager to compete for the first major of the season.
World number one Nelly Korda goes in as the favourite and she goes into the first round fresh, having taken off the last two weeks to prepare for a tournament that has eluded her so far.
Last year at Erin Hills in Wisconsin, Korda was in the hunt all Sunday but could not catch Maja Stark of Sweden at the. Her tie for second was her best finish at the championship to date.
“Last year was just a weird year of kind of not necessarily playing my best, but also when I did, not getting the bounces or just missing by a centimeter here and there,” Korda said. “But I also learned a lot about myself. It made me hungrier to be in those positions.”
A victory this week would give Korda her fourth career major title.
Also chasing victory is Lydia Ko who enters US Open with a chance to eclipse Annika Sorenstam as the biggest money-winner in women’s golf.
Ko’s $21.8 million in earnings is second to Sorenstam’s $22.5 million. Ko has 23 career wins on the LPGA Tour while Sweden’s Sorenstam had 72 from 1995-2008, third all-time behind Americans Kathy Whitworth (88 from 1962-85) and Mickey Wright (82 from 1956-73).
“For me, like the win count is probably a little bit more meaningful,” said Ko, who has three major titles.
“It’s cool to be, I guess, compared to that record and hopefully surpass it at some point, but it’s like very hard to kind of like compare it because we are playing for a lot more money than she did back in that day.”
Armagh’s Olivia Mehaffey is also taking part after winning the qualifer event at Buckinghamshire Golf Club.
The Armagh woman took one of the two spots on offer after managing a three under total, following rounds of 70 and 71. It’ll be a third appearance at the event for Mehaffey after playing there in 2018 and 2020.