Why the Solheim Cup star felt looked down upon by his captain: ‘Bitter pill’
Leona Maguire at the Solheim Cup this week.
getty photos
Playing the same way isn’t for every golfer – going head-to-head for just 18 holes requires a different mindset from 72 holes of stroke play – but the cutthroat format brings out the best in some players. Tiger and Jack were happy to enter mano-a-mano the same. Annika and Cristie Kerr, too. Seve and Sergio. Lanny and Monty. P-Reed and Poults.
Then there’s Ireland’s Leona Maguire.
In his first two Solheim Cup appearances, in 2021 and ’23, Maguire played all five times in each tournament, posting a perfect 7-2-1 record. Maguire shone brightly in the pressure cooker that is Sunday’s singles, taking down Jennifer Kupcho, 5 and 4, in 2021, and Rose Zhang, 4 and 3, in Spain last year. (Earlier this year, Maguire reminded fans of his performance when he advanced to the finals of the T-Mobile Match Play in Las Vegas, losing to Nelly Korda in the title match.)
“The last two, my job is to score as many points as possible,” Maguire, 29, said earlier this week at the last two Solheim Cup events. “That’s how I contribute in a better way to the team, and that’s what I’m trying to do. Also, every Solheim Cup is different, and whatever Suzann wants me to do this week, that’s what I’m going to do.
As in Suzann Petterson, the European captain.
Petterson knew what kind of form Maguire was showing this week: in the middle would be a kinder descriptor. Since winning the Aramco Series event in London at the beginning of July, Maguire had made a record one-fifteen, at the Irish Open earlier this month. This left Petterson with a tough decision at Robert Trent Jones Golf Club: play Maguire lightly and hope his more in-form teammates can carry the load, or ignore Maguire’s recent performances and ride one of his playhorses.
Maguire’s first shot at proving herself came on Friday afternoon in a four-ball match with Georgia Hall against World No. 1s Nelly Korda and Megan Khang. Things did not go well. The European made only three birdies and was reduced, 6 and 4.
Petterson had seen enough. On Saturday, he benched Maguire not once but twice, meaning the Solhiem star who has played 10 games in the past two editions of the event will play just two in Virginia. With Europe in first place with four points, Petterson decided to look elsewhere for a spark to ignite his team.
“Nobody can take away Leona’s record, the value he put into the European team, playing or not,” said Petterson on Saturday evening when asked to explain his thinking. “[But] it ended up being the same place we were standing yesterday, we used to go by form. Unfortunately, so far, Leona has not been, I don’t know, the rock I expected.
But it doesn’t matter, and like I told him, he doesn’t have to prove anything to any of us. He has won Solheim the last two times. You have every reason to be disappointed, but you also have the character and the courage to say, you know, fair play, I’m not playing mine, and go play someone else who has a better chance. to score points on the board.”
If Petterson was looking to put a chip on Maguire’s shoulder, goal accomplished. With Europe still in a four-point hole going into Sunday’s games, Maguire looked into his match against Ally Ewing as a player with something to prove: to his captains, to his team-mates, to the world. Maguire birdied four of his nine holes to open up a 2-up lead. Six holes later, the match was over – a 4-and-3 drubbing.
The US wins its first Solheim Cup in 7 years after battling Europe to the tune of Sunday
Jack Hirsh
“I felt like I played good golf today,” Maguire said afterwards. “I feel like I’ve been playing good golf all week in practice, and it was a bitter pill to swallow to sit out as many sessions as I was, but I thought I had a point to prove today.”
Did Petterson explain to Maguire about Maguire’s stay on Saturday?
“He didn’t give much of a reason,” Maguire said. “The feeling I had was that I was too short and I didn’t make enough birdies, but I think it was proven today that there is more than one way to cut a cat, and I think I made a lot of birdies today. The Captain’s decision. I’m a team player, and all I can do today is go out and earn my point, and that’s what I did.”
Maguire added: “I don’t need any more motivation to go out and try to get my point, but yeah, maybe there was a bit more there, I’m not going to lie. But in the end it’s what’s best for the team this week, and I would have loved the opportunity to try and bring more points to the team, but I did what I could today.”
On the other hand, Petterson said that he does not regret his tactics.
“I have never lived my life regretting any decisions,” he said on Sunday evening after his team’s three-point loss to the Americans. “Don’t just play with your gut feeling and your heart. Sometimes you are played. There was a reason why Leona and the backers were the way they were. We know what they can do. We know what they are going through. If we were going to have a chance this time, we needed all 12 players, and we do – it would be great to have an anchor like Leona in the back who knows she can pick it up and do it.
“I mean, it’s a 12-woman team, and it’s always difficult to make pairs. Sometimes you get it right, sometimes you get played. Maybe we could have played with other players who might have faced different enemies which would have changed the outcome. You can always look back, but at the same time I don’t think as a team we have any regrets about what we did.”
The reporter pressed Petterson on his decision, but the captain had nothing more to say on the matter.
“It is very difficult to accommodate the players in this team,” he said. “The way it happened, it was.”
Shortly after winning her singles, Maguire sent a six-word message to X: “Form is temporary, class is forever.”
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