{"id":459406,"date":"2026-03-05T19:41:07","date_gmt":"2026-03-05T19:41:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/459406\/"},"modified":"2026-03-05T19:41:07","modified_gmt":"2026-03-05T19:41:07","slug":"maguire-starts-well-in-china-donegan-best-placed-in-oz","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/459406\/","title":{"rendered":"Maguire starts well in China; Donegan best-placed in Oz"},"content":{"rendered":"

Leona Maguire is just three shots off the lead in China after a solid start at the Blue Bay LPGA.<\/p>\n

The Cavan woman carded an opening three-under-par 69 at Jian Lake Blue Bay Golf Course on Hainan Island.<\/p>\n

FULL LEADERBOARD<\/a><\/p>\n

A bogey at the first and fourth was sandwiched by a birdie at the second hole, but from there on in it was all positive on the scorecard.<\/p>\n

The 31-year-old picked up a shot at the ninth, with three more on the back nine, including the par-five 18th.<\/p>\n

South Korea’s Hwang You-min and the Chinese pair of Mary Liu and Zhang Weiyue share top spot on the leaderboard.<\/p>\n

The 108-player field will compete for a \u20ac2.4m purse.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, Aine Donegan is best placed of the Irish at the Australian Women’s Classic, where Czech Republic\u2019s Sara Kouskova leads the way after shooting an eight-under-par 64, which is a new course record.<\/p>\n

Donegan is in a tie for 20th and five shots adrift of Kouskova after a 69.<\/p>\n

FULL LEADEBROARD<\/a><\/p>\n

One under at the turn, the 23-year-old picked up three shots on the back nine before closing with a bogey at the last.<\/p>\n

The other Irish golfer in the field is Anna Foster, who posted a two-over-par round of 74.<\/p>\n

The woman to catch at Magenta Shores is two-time Ladies European Tour winner Kouskova, who capitalised on calm conditions in New South Wales carding eight birdies in a bogey-free round to lead by two.<\/p>\n

“Honestly, it was such a steady round today,” Kouskova said, who matched her career-best round thanks to the morning flurry.<\/p>\n

“I think I struggled mentally last week a little bit and kind of going towards the season I was very excited, but then it just felt that it wasn\u2019t there in my mind correctly.”<\/p>\n

Two back in a tie for second on six under sit New Zealand\u2019s Momoka Kobori, Ecuador\u2019s Daniela Darquea and Australia\u2019s Kelsey Bennett.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Leona Maguire is just three shots off the lead in China after a solid start at the Blue…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":459407,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[39],"tags":[5904,101,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-459406","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-golf","tag-golf","tag-sports","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/459406","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=459406"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/459406\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/459407"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=459406"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=459406"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=459406"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}