Ronan MacNamara in Riyadh
Leona Maguire faces a battle to make the cut at the Aramco Saudi Ladies International Presented by PIF after a troublesome afternoon on the greens in Riyadh.
Maguire’s round rather unravelled before her as she finished with three successive bogeys and four dropped shots in her closing six holes, three-putting three of the greens for a four-over 76.
“For the most part I played very well today, it was obviously very tough conditions,” she reflected.
“It was a bit of lottery on the greens with how windy it was and how poor they are so I’ll go hit a few putts and try play a bit better tomorrow.”
A 76 doesn’t show how well Maguire played throughout. The Cavan star had plenty of birdie opportunities on the greens and looked up for the battle in the strong wind as she rolled in a birdie from 15-feet on the tenth to get back to level-par.
That would be her only birdie of the day as she shaved edges on 11, 12 and 14 and costly three-putts saw her turn a potential 71 or 72 into an uphill battle to make it into the weekend at the $5m event.
“I felt like level par would be a good score given the conditions in the afternoon. I hung in for quite a while and was in a nice position through ten, eleven holes and then it just got away from me a bit towards the end,” lamented the two-time LPGA Tour winner.
At the end of the opening day Maguire is in a share of 66th place with the top-60 making the halfway cut on Friday. She trails Patty Tavatanakit by ten shots after the Thai major champion opened with a superb 66 in the slightly more benign morning conditions.
This is just Maguire’s third start of the campaign and first on the Ladies European Tour as she bids to go through the gears with two more events in Thailand and Singapore to come.
“Tee to green I played nicely, it was just the greens that got me today,” said the 29-year-old.
“This week is just preparation for Thailand next week and if I hit it like that in Thailand I will be pretty happy so just fine tune the putting.”
Tavatanakit holds a one shot lead over South African star Paula Reto with Nicole Broch Entrap and Manon DeRoey a shot further back.
Of the big names in the field Ayaka Furue and Amy Yang are best placed on two-under-par with Carlota Ciganda of Spain a shot further back.
2020 winner Emily Kristine Pedersen ground her way to a 71 while Lexi Thompson is level-par after a 70.
Georgia Hall is one-over while Charley Hull finished with a flourish, birdieing the 18th for a two-over 74.
Scoring HERE
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