Maguire: “To play for equal prize money with the men is a big deal”

Rónán MacNamara in Riyadh

Leona Maguire believes a huge opportunity knocks for women’s golf at this week’s Aramco Saudi Ladies International Presented by PIF as the players compete for a record $5m prize purse.

Held in the Saudi Arabian capital of Riyadh for the first time, the $5 million prize fund is the largest prize fund on the Ladies European Tour, the largest prize fund in the women’s game outside of the five majors and CME Group Tour Championship, and matches the men’s PIF Saudi International which Maguire feels is a massive step forward for women’s golf.

“It’s massive,” claimed Maguire. “It’s our biggest outside the majors and the CME so to play for equal prize money with the men is a big deal and it’s the biggest event on the LET schedule so there’s a massive opportunity for the girls and I’m very excited about the weekend.”

The world number 27 is one of a number of top class players in the field at Riyadh Golf Club including Charley Hull, Georgia Hall, Lexi Thompson, Emily Pedersen, Carlota Ciganda and Linn Grant and a stern test faces them with firm and fast greens and a stiff breeze.

“It’s an interesting golf course, it’s windy and the greens are pretty tough, they’re firm so you definitely have to pick your spots hitting into the greens so it’s about having a strategy for certain tee shots on holes so you can come in to the hole with a decent yardage.”

Making just her third start of the season and first since the end of January, Maguire’s mind is firmly on an extremely busy summer schedule, starting with the first major of the season, The Chevron Championship in April.

The Cavan woman’s focus over the next three weeks is to compete well but fine tune her game to peak for a period which will include five majors, the Solheim Cup and the Olympics between April and September.

“It’s still early in the season just trying to tidy everything up, three good weeks out here now to sharpen everything up,” said the two-time LPGA Tour winner.

“I played some nice golf on the LPGA Tour it wasn’t all clicking together so this will be a good test to see how things are going ahead of the run into the majors starting with the Chevron in a couple of months.

“The summer will be absolutely hectic that’s where you want to be playing your best golf, the first half of the year is trying to do as well as I can in every event but you’re fine tuning everything to get into working order by the time the summer rolls around.”

Maguire will tee off alongside Linn Grant (Sweden) and Amy Yang (Korea).