A FIRST WIN on the LPGA Tour. Nine top-10 finishes from 26 tournaments in eight different countries (two of those finishes at majors). A highest ever world ranking of 11th. Ninth in the LGPA earnings list with paychecks totalling €1.7 million, almost double her rookie and sophomore years on the tour combined.
Those were just some of numbers which made up Leona Maguire’s 2022. It was less a breakout season, more a firm warning to her counterparts that Maguire is here for all the marbles.
Zoom out, and the Cavan woman’s form has been tracking inexorably in that direction since she first swung a golf club. Zoom in, and that she signed off her season by placing tied for 10th at the Pelican Women’s Championship, and then coming from the back-arse of the chasing pack to push eventual winner Lydia Ko all the way at the CME Group Tour Championship, would suggest that there was oxygen left in the tank to scale even greater heights.
She has always worn a good poker face, mind.
“It’s a funny one,” Maguire smiles. “It’s been a long year. It’s been a long time since we started in Florida. But at the same time, it’s gone by very fast.
“It kind of felt like the season had sort of different sections to it. I felt like I finished the season really strongly and it would have been nice to keep that momentum going and have almost that wraparound season like the lads do… but at the same time I think my body needed a break and, mentally, I needed a break, so it’s nice to be home for Christmas.
“Hopefully this weather is a little bit nicer to us over the next couple of weeks,” Maguire laughs, stressing that she “won’t down tools completely” while back in Ballyconnell for her longest breather of the year. “You kind of want to stay ready as opposed to having to get ready,” she explains.
It’s important that she doesn’t over-exert herself, either, before flying back to her base in Orlando, Florida on 2 January. The start of the 2023 LPGA schedule is relatively light-duty.
Late June through to September, then, will herald the comparable insanity of four majors and Europe’s Solheim Cup defence in Spain. Plus, sandwiched between the British Open and the Solheim will be Maguire’s second KPMG Women’s Irish Open.
After its resuscitation from a 10-year hiatus at Dromoland Castle in 2022, the tournament will return to the Co. Clare course three weeks earlier in next year’s schedule, between 31 August and 3 September — a week before the men’s equivalent at the K Club.
As was the case in 2022, when Maguire jetted in straight from the Portland Classic to compete at Dromoland, the timing is somewhat inopportune for the 28-year-old: the Kroger Queen City Championship in Cincinnati the following week is the final LPGA event before the Solheim at the backend of September. “But logistically”, Maguire says, “I’ll just have to figure all of that out,” officially confirming her participation in The Banner County next year.
“I think this year was a fantastic success,” she smiles. “It was all put together at quite short notice so I think it went as well as we could’ve hoped. The crowds were fantastic, especially at the weekend, so hopefully we can do even better next year and, obviously, with KPMG on board, it’s great to have a title sponsor that’s invested in women’s sport and women’s golf.
It’s big — it’s big to have the event back on the schedule, not just for ourselves who are pros now but for the juniors and the young amateurs growing up. I got to play in a few Irish Opens as an amateur and I learned a lot, and I think it’s great for the younger generation as well to be able to get a taste; to test their game against the pros and see what it’s like, see if it’s something that they want to do.
“When it comes to equality in sport, a lot of people get hung up on the equal pay and all that. And I think that obviously is an important factor, but access and visibility — and access to opportunity — is also a massive part of it.
“You see that with the women’s soccer team this year as well: people getting to go to games and really rallying behind them for the World Cup.
I got to go to a lot of Irish Opens as a kid to watch some of the best players in the world. It’s one thing watching sport on telly, but actually being there and getting to experience the atmosphere and everything that goes with it is on a different level. And then it’s an added bonus if you get to meet your heroes or whatever it is, so I think it’s huge that the Irish Open is back on the schedule and hopefully it’s there for a long time.
Of course, there is a markedly different complexion to the week when you, personally, are the hero that people want to meet. There is an extent to which Maguire must carry the event on her shoulders, not merely competing on the course but meeting the people whose arms are outstretched in her direction from the other side of the gallery rope.
“Yeah,” she shrugs. “A little bit. But that’s something I was happy to do.
“It would have been nice to have four more pros playing like the lads have!” she laughs. “But hopefully that’s in the plans going forward, that it’ll only get bigger and get better.
The crowds are incredible. The support I had that week was fantastic and we don’t get to play in front of home fans very often. Even chatting to the other girls who are LET players, that felt like a major to them: we had bigger crowds in Dromoland than we did at the British Open.
“With the LPGA girls, it obviously had a lot of social media presence so they were seeing the highlights, the size of the crowd and all that.
“I think the number of LPGA girls you’d get [to compete at an Irish Open] boils down to two things: the purse and the scheduling. It wasn’t at an ideal time for us in the LPGA schedule this year but hopefully we can get to a place in the next few years where it’s in a nice place in the schedule so that we can get a few of the really big names teeing it up.”
Her own name carries that sort of weight in Ireland now. In only a handful of years, Maguire has become a part of the mainstream sporting conversation in her home country; someone whose progress the casual Irish sports fan will also Google-search on a given weekend while checking how her male compatriots are faring at PGA, DP World Tour, and Tour Champion events.
Leona Maguire won’t tell you as much; she won’t even really take credit for it. But she is at least beginning to feel it.
“I think I’ve had a lot of eyes on me for a while,” she smiles, almost wincing as she hears the words out loud. “I think it’s just a gradual thing. I probably get recognised a little bit more in the last few months and that; more people stopping and asking for pictures or for me to sign things or what have you.
“But I’m in a very privileged position that I have young kids and people looking up to me and hopefully that can only strengthen women’s golf in Ireland, and women’s sport in general.
“I think we’re fortunate to be in a time where there is this momentum with women’s sport in Ireland — and around the world. And it’s been fantastic to see so many of the girls doing so well this year, not just myself, so I think we’ve all kind of rode the momentum of that.”
Equally a cause and consequence of this momentum has been an increase in financial investment in women’s sport globally.
Maguire’s various endorsement deals are reward for a couple of decades’ diligence. The Cavan woman has emerged from a bottleneck of thousands of aspiring professionals and the relative financial security she has earned in recent years means that she should only ever have to look over her shoulder to see who’s breathing down her neck on a Sunday.
This is a privilege not lost on Maguire. It’s a testament to her skill that her ascent towards golf’s summit has been so rapid, but she has to think back only three or four years to illustrate the slog of leaving base camp even as a former amateur World No.1.
“A lot of players struggle with the transition from amateur to pro life because of the investment it takes to keep going,” she says.
When I started out, there was no profit to be made: you were kind of going from week to week, $500-a-pop entry fees. And with paying a caddy and travel and all that, the expenses do pile up pretty quick. You’re looking week to week: ‘Okay, that paycheck is going towards that. Do I have enough in my account to pay this week’s bills?’ So, I suppose I’m fortunate now to be in a position where… not to say it’s not a worry, but I can focus on my golf and not be worrying what each shot is worth or things like that.
“I mean, I’m very lucky to be able to play golf and travel the world for a living and that’s something I’ll never take for granted.”
In finishing second at the most lucrative tournament in women’s golf, the CME Group Tour Championship in Florida last month, Maguire earned the biggest single paycheck of her career: roughly €517,000. That took her season’s earnings on the course to just over €1.7m.
Even allowing for taxes and notwithstanding the various expenses of being a globetrotting professional golfer, it would be fair to say Maguire has enjoyed a solid year in the office.
It might also be fair to say that, of all the great numbers she posted in 2022, those that Maguire pocketed after each weekend’s work were among those of least importance to a woman whose mind is instead fixed on first-placed finishes and a fistful more Solheim Cup points next year.
She is grateful, however, that she can now lend a hand to the people without whom none of those numbers, on or off the course, would be possible.
“I haven’t made any major purchases yet,” Maguire says. “I got a Rolex for the first win which was pretty cool, so I spent a little bit of money and upgraded that. That’s something I guess I’ll always have.
I’m still from Cavan, I still have that mentality at heart… Coming home keeps me well grounded! I’ve never been interested in having a big flashy Lamborghini or anything like that.
“But no… It’s nice that Dad was able to retire a little bit early when he wanted and not have to worry about money.
“And I suppose Lisa (sister) and our brother Odhran, still in college, but they don’t have to worry about that… and it’s expensive putting people through college!” Maguire laughs. “It’s nice that I can help out with that as well.”
