Leona Maguire believes that her game is in better shape than her results have shown so far and she hopes to get a kick from new caddie Shane O’Connell at the first women’s major of the year, the Chevron Championship.
Maguire, a veteran of major championships these days with 31 starts under her belt, will have a sense of freshness when she tees it up at The Club at Carlton Woods in Texas today, as her caddie O’Connell is making his major debut at this level.
Kinsale native O’Connell caddied for John Murphy on the DP World Tour but joined forces with Maguire last month after she parted ways with Kerry caddie Verners Tess after an eight month stint following her split from Dermot Byrne. Both parties could do with some stability in this relationship.
“Yeah, so far, so good,” said Maguire who will be looking to improve on a record of three top-10 finishes in majors. “Shane has come across from the men’s side, so it’s been a learning experience for him.
“But we’ve been getting along very well personality-wise. We’re similar and both pretty level-headed and it’s nice to have a fellow Irish person on the bag. Same sort of sense of humour and way of doing things.
“So I’m getting used to him. He’s getting used to me and we’re just trying to adapt as well as we can and learn as we go.”
As for her form coming in, the Cavan woman (30) has one top-10 finish in her eight starts on the LPGA Tour this campaign but has made all of her cuts. A new putter has been added to her weaponry and she hopes this can be the week where she pieces everything together.
“I feel like it’s been taking shape nicely,” she said of her game. “Played some nice golf in LA last week. I got a new putter in the bag which worked pretty well.
“It’s been consistent. I just need to try and get myself into contention a little bit more… But I’m driving the ball a lot better than I did last year.
“The things we worked on in the off-season are starting to come together pretty well. I am just trying to get it all to click together in one week.”
A deluge of rain has already saturated the golf course making it play long in practice and Maguire can expect more wet weather when she gets underway alongside Solheim Cup captain and soon to be KPMG Women’s Irish Open participant, Anna Nordqvist and Ingrid Lindblad, a new LPGA Tour winner and former LSU teammate of Áine Donegan.
“It’s playing long this year. It’s pretty soft, it’s pretty wet. So especially the front side we played yesterday, it played long. So I think definitely keeping it as close to par as possible early on. I guess it’s a tough start, 1, 2, 3 is a tough opening stretch. So getting through those, those opening holes and then just try to give yourself chances.
I think you get in the right sections of the green here, you give yourself chances, otherwise you end up with a lot of puts over up and down slopes and cross slopes. It makes your life a lot more difficult so hitting a lot of greens in the right spots, I think is definitely the key this week.”
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