Leona Maguire admitted she produced her best golf of the week so far as she swept South Kore’a Narin An aside to book her spot in the knockout stages of the Bank of Hope LPGA Matchplay.
Maguire advances with three wins from three in the group stage and she was a comfortable 5&3 winner over An in Las Vegas.
The Cavan native found herself down early after An birdied the first but she rallied with birdies on 3, 4 and 5 before pars on 6 and 8 saw her make the turn at Shadow Creek three holes to the good.
Six pars on the spin were enough to close out her match on 15 to progress to the last-16.
“Yeah, probably played the best I’ve played the last few days today,” said the 2021 Solheim Cup star. “Drove the ball really solid and, yeah, executed well on my targets. Kept it pretty steady. Didn’t really make a whole lot of mistakes out there.
“She made a really nice birdie on the first so, not a whole lot I could do about that. Yeah, got it back on the third, which was nice.
“And then birdied 4. Had like a horseshoe chip-in, lip-out on 4 for eagle, which would’ve been nice. But birdie 4 and 5 and I think I was even par from there on. Just steady.
“Had a few chances but didn’t really need to do anything special, so just sort of played steady. Hopefully bring that momentum into tomorrow.”
Maguire saw off Sweden’s Linnea Strom 4&2 in match one before coming from four down to pip Korea’s Jenny Shin 1UP and she was pleased to make it to the last-16 having been eliminated from the group stage two years ago.
“This week is a marathon, not a sprint. I’m used to knock-out matches, so the group play is definitely a little different. But we had a really good group, a really balanced group, so, yeah, just to get out of the group is good.”
Maguire is certainly someone nobody will want to face over the weekend and she will take on Perrine Delacour.
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