Leona Maguire got off to a nightmarish start at the T-Mobile Match Play as she was thrashed 6&5 by Canadian star Brooke Henderson.
Maguire never led in the match and was thirteen-over for the thirteen holes that she played against Henderson. It could have been a dream start for the Cavan woman who stitched her approach to two feet on the first, but Henderson rolled in a 20-footer to halve the hole.
At that stage Henderson was braced for a titanic battle against last year’s runner-up but she pulled away at her ease.
“First hole, Leona stuffed it to two feet, so I had to make maybe an over 20 feet birdie putt to halve the hole. I was like, ‘Oh my gosh. This is going to be so hard,’” Henderson said after her match. “I knew this round would be challenging, so happy I was able to come out on top today.”
Henderson won the next three holes to take control and she never let up as she closed out the match at the 13th hole.
“Playing with Leona, I knew it was going to be really, really tough because she has such a great track record with match play and she is such a great player,” Henderson said about Maguire.
“She was playing well. It was just a really tough day out there.”
Maguire, who has a new caddie in the shape of Shane O’Connell who was a former looper for John Murphy, will have to regroup quickly as she faces a daunting task against former world number one Jin Young Ko in round two, a match she must win to keep her hopes of advancing from the group stages alive.
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