WELCOME TO THE other side of the ropes.
Meath-born amateur Alex Maguire went to the Open Championship last year as a fan, sleeping in the nearby tented village and watching Cam Smith break Rory McIlroy’s heart at St Andrew’s. Smith is now at Hoylake to defend the Claret Jug, McIlroy is the bookie’s favourite to wrestle it back, and Maguire is teeing it up.
“Mad”, he laughs over the phone with The 42.
And as improbable a series of events this is, Maguire says he always believed qualification for the Open was attainable. (If you want an insight into his self-belief, he calls the Open “my first major” during the course of our chat.)
Heading into his final year at Florida Atlantic University, Maguire – a member of Laytown and Bettystown Golf Club- has an impressive amateur record, going back-to-back at the East of Ireland and winning the 2021 North of Ireland at Portrush. Qualification for the Open, however, was a fraught thing. He earned an invite through the R&A’s new Open Amateur Series, which is given to the golfer who accumulates the highest number of World Amateur Golf Ranking (WAGR) points across three events: the St Andrews Links Trophy, The British Amateur Championship and European Amateur Championship.
Maguire won the St Andrews Links at the home of golf and made the quarter-finals of the British Amateur, but then skipped the European Amateur as it would have meant a seventh-straight week of competition. Instead, he stayed at home and played some pitch-and-putt with friends on the morning of the final day. It might have been less tiring to play the event than sit at his laptop following its results while making desperate, Beautiful Mind-style computations.
“I took that week off and it beat me in the ass when I was sat at home looking at the scores on the laptop, doing the calculations”, he says. “I had done all the calculations on my notepad and the calculations were that I won by two or three points, that’s what I was guessing. But the WAGR didn’t update, I still was in the dark. I was almost sure I was going to get it, and then I got a text off the R&A saying that the numbers haven’t been done yet by WAGR, but be prepared for a call, whether it is good or bad.”
The R&A didn’t expect to have to make a call, as they anticipated that the winner of the Open ticket to have been in the field at the European Amateur rather than, say, writhing in front of a laptop and calculator in Meath. Maguire got a call from a member of the R&A’s media content team explaining exactly this, telling him he was in the frame and to make himself available for some media duties if he earned the golden ticket. It was still an if at this point. His phone finally rang just after 5pm.
“When I did get the call I still wasn’t fully sure whether it was going to be good or bad news until the guy, Ewan, on the phone said he was delighted to offer me this place.”
The call came 18 days ago. Maguire’s mind instantly switched to the logistics of the thing – accommodation, transport, tickets – and arrived on site at Hoylake on Monday morning. His Dad Seán followed on Tuesday morning and did a TV interview a couple of hours after arriving. He quickly broke down in tears.
“There are a lot of friends who are posting him pictures of tissues and Kleenex and all the things he will need for the week!” He was emotional. It’s the first time aside from speaking to his friends that he was saying those things to the public. It all got to him, and he said how proud he was that I am playing.
“He’s an emotional man at the best of times, seeing him getting teary-eyed talking about me playing the Open…it was quite special. It means a lot to me that he’s that passionate about it. Anyone who knows me knows my Dad has supported me for the last 12 years. He has gone to every event with me when I’ve been at home, he has made his way to the States a few times.”
It also isn’t the first time the pair have been at Hoylake in Open year. In 2014 – the last time the Liverpool course hosted the championship – Alex and his Dad travelled over to see Liverpool play Spurs at Anfield. (Alex is a Liverpool fan, while Seán supports Spurs.) Alex was only 13 at the time but fully hooked on golf, to the point they drove over with two sets of clubs in the car in the hope they’d find a driving range for an hour before the match. The game was then postponed for 24 hours and Seán set about finding a course to play. He somehow alighted on Hoylake.
“Dad emailed Hoylake, I didn’t know how big it was at the time”, says Alex, “and I didn’t know the Open was going to be held there.. We got out, and I am not sure how we got out. Somebody snuck us out, I’m not sure we were supposed to be on the course. A few of the grandstands were up, and we were the only people on the course. We got a few pictures we want to recreate this week, with Open memorabilia and the Open trucks. But I am sure it will play differently this week than it did nine years ago.”
And so to the business of playing. The first few days after earning his invite were spent on the logistics of the thing – tickets, transport, and accommodation – and it was only on Monday that realisation of playing sunk in. Maguire and his caddie Jack McDonnell went hunting for his locker, assuming he would be between MACINTYRE, Bob and MATSUYAMA, Hideki. Nope.
Instead, an official came over and said his locker was in a different section. Maguire initially thought the amateurs would have been put beside the toilets. Instead he was directed to the champions’ locker room where he found his name between LOWRY, Shane and MCILROY, Rory.
“That’s when it became very real”, he says. “That was the start of accepting I am playing the Open.
“I met Shane two years ago at the Irish Open Pro-Am, I played with him, through Sport Ireland. He is one of the guys everyone wants to talk to, and I didn’t want to disturb him. But then he came over to me in the players lounge and we spoke for a few minutes. Yesterday was my first time meeting Rory. I watched him at the Open and Irish Open a few times and I met him for the first time at my locker when he was getting his stuff. I assumed I’d meet him eventually.
“I didn’t speak to him for too long, but he was nice, he said, ‘Congratulations on qualifying, great job’: all the niceties you say when you’re meeting someone. It’s a strange life for him. Everywhere he goes everybody knows him and everyone is looking for him, so he has to keep his head down so he’s not being dragged into conversations he doesn’t want to be in. But when it was just me and him in the locker room, he knew I wasn’t going to disturb him and ask him for a picture. He’s a really nice guy and obviously one of my golfing heroes so to get the opportunity to talk to him is great.”
Maguire ended up playing a Tuesday practice round with Patrick Reed and Denny McCarthy, and is slated to play with Lowry and Padraig Harrington at noon today. “Just walking around, you’re walking past Jordan Spieth like it’s nothing, trying not to freak out, not disturb him or get in his way”, says Maguire. “It’s pretty cool being able to rub shoulders with the best in the world.”
Maguire has been paired with 2011 Masters Champion Charl Schwartzel – another guy with some McIlroy heartbreak on his CV – and Japan’s Rikuya Hoshino, and will tee off at 7.08 am on Thursday morning. He is one of six amateurs in the field, making the Low Amateur title a target.
“It’s a realistic target”, he says, “if you dumb it down, there’s only five guys I have to beat. But unfortunately those five guys are the best amateurs in the world. It’s an attainable target. For me to achieve it, I’ve got to focus on what I can control, commit to every shot, and accept where a shot goes. I will keep that on repeat this week and hopefully it leads to some good golf.”
That will involve conquering the Major nerves, admitting he is looking forward to getting his opening tee shot out of the way.
“I don’t know if I can get the ball on the tee on Thursday! Golf is what I do best, golf is the reason that I am playing the Open. It’s not an invite or a brown envelope job, I qualified here because of my golf. I am pretty confident when I get on the course I won’t feel too nervous.”