Leona Maguire at the Solheim Cup this week.
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Match play isn’t for every golfer — going head-to-head for just 18 holes requires a different mindset than 72 holes of stroke play — but the cut-and-dried format brings out the best in some players. Tiger and Jack thrived inside hand to hand the matches. Annika and Cristie Kerr too. Seve and Sergio. Lanny and Monty. P-Reed and Poults.
And then there’s Ireland Leona Maguire.
In her first two Solheim Cup appearances, in 2021 and ’23, Maguire played in all five sessions in each competition, posting a 7-2-1 record. Maguire particularly excelled in the pressure cooker that is Sunday’s singles, knocking off Jennifer Kupcho, 5 and 4, in 2021, and Rose Zhang4 and 3, in Spain last year. (Earlier this year, Maguire reminded fans of her matchplay prowess when she advanced to the finals of the T-Mobile Match Play in Las Vegas, losing to Nelly Korda in the title match.)
“For the last two, my job is to get as many points as possible,” Maguire, who is 29, said earlier this week of the previous two editions of the Solheim Cup. “That’s how I can best contribute to the team and that’s what I try to do. Again, every Solheim Cup is different and whatever Suzann wants me to do this week, I’ll do it.”
As in Suzanne PettersenEuropean captain.
Pettersen knew what kind of form Maguire was showing this week: medium would be a kind descriptor. Since winning an Aramco Series event in London in early July, Maguire had recorded just one top-15 finish, at the Irish Open earlier this month. That left Pettersen with a tough decision at Robert Trent Jones Golf Club: play Maguire sparingly and hope her fitter teammates can carry the load, or ignore Maguire’s recent performances and ride on one of her game stallions.
Maguire’s first shot at proving himself came in a Friday afternoon four-ball match with Georgia Hall against the world No.1. Nelly Korda and Megan Khang. Things did not go well. The Europeans made only three birdies and bogeyed, 6 and 4.
Pettersen had seen enough. On Saturday, she benched Maguire not once but twice, meaning the Solhiem stalwart, who had played 10 matches in the previous two editions of the event, would only play two in Virginia. With Europe in an early four-point hole, Pettersen decided to look elsewhere for a spark to ignite her team.
“Nobody can take away Leona’s record, the value she brings to the European team, playing or not,” Pettersen said on Saturday night when asked to explain her thinking. “(But) it ended up where we were behind yesterday, we had to go according to form. Unfortunately, so far, Leona hasn’t been, I don’t know, the rock that I kind of hoped for.
“But of course I’m not taking anything away and like I said, she doesn’t have to prove anything to either of us. She has won Solheim for us the last two times. She has every reason to be disappointed, but she also has the character and courage to say, you know what, fair play, I’m not playing well anymore and go play someone else who has a better chance. to get points on the board.”
If Pettersen was looking to put a chip on Maguire’s shoulder, mission accomplished. With Europe still in a four-point hole heading into Sunday’s singles, Maguire looked in her match against Ally Ewing like a player with something to prove: to her captains, to her teammates, to the world . Maguire birdied four of the first nine holes to open a 2-up lead. Six holes later, the match was over — a 4-and-3 scratch.
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“I felt like I played great golf today,” Maguire said afterward. “I feel like I’ve been playing really great golf all week in practice, and it was a tough pill to swallow sitting out as many sessions as I was, but I thought I had a point to try today.”
Had Pettersen explained to Maguire on Saturday on Maguire’s bench?
“She didn’t give much reason,” Maguire said. “The feeling I got was that I was a bit too short and I didn’t make enough birdies, but I think it proved today that there’s more than one way to skin a cat and I think I made a lot of birdies today. The captain’s decision. I’m a team player and all I could do today was go out and get my point, and that’s what I did.”
Maguire added: “I don’t need any extra motivation to go out and try to get my point, but yeah, there was probably a bit more there, I’m not going to lie. But at the end of the day it’s best for the team this week and I would have loved the opportunity to try and give more points for the team, but I did what I could today.”
For her part, Pettersen said she had no regrets about her tactics.
“I’ve never lived my life regretting any decision,” she said Sunday night after her team’s three-point loss to the Americans. “You’d better play with your soul and heart. Sometimes you go offside. There was a reason Leona and the back line was what it was. We know what they are capable of. We know what they are facing. If we were going to have a chance at that, we needed all 12 players, and we needed – it would be nice to have an anchor like Leona on the back knowing she could pick it up and do it.
“I mean, it’s a 12-woman team and it’s always going to be difficult to make the pairings. Sometimes you get it right, sometimes you get it wrong. Maybe we could have played other players maybe we could have faced different opponents that could have changed the result. You can always look back, but at the same time I don’t think we as a team have any regrets about what we did.”
A reporter pressed Pettersen on her decision, but the captain had nothing else to say on the matter.
“It’s extremely difficult to cut any players in this team,” she said. “As it is, so it is.”
Shortly after her singles win, Maguire posted a six-word message on X: “Form is temporary, class is permanent.”
