Leona Maguire admits it was a threat, however she’s hoping her determination to retool her swing underneath Tiger Woods’ former coach could make her higher than she was when she reached tenth on the planet lower than two years in the past.
The Co Cavan star has been working with Sean Foley since falling exterior the world’s prime 100 on the finish of final 12 months, and whereas her outcomes have been combined, she’s preserving her fingers crossed that the gamble will repay with a fourth Solheim Cup look within the Netherlands in September.
“I suppose I used to be at a crossroads on the finish of the 12 months,” Maguire informed RTE Radio’s Sport On.
“I would had quite a lot of middle-of-the-pack finishes final 12 months, type of scratching my head going, what’s subsequent? How do I enhance?
“Do I accept ending fortieth, fiftieth on the cash checklist week in, week out, or do I wish to truly get again into the highest 10 and contend week on week?”
Nonetheless searching for that maiden Main win, she opted to make the tough determination to inform her coach of 20 years, Shane O’Grady, that she was going to start working with Foley at her Orlando base.
“There have been no ensures it was going to work,” she informed RTE’s Greg Allen. “There is not any ensures it nonetheless has labored. However that was a threat I felt like I wished to take to deliver my recreation to the following stage.”
Whereas outcomes have been combined, a runner-up end on the Aramco Championship at punishing Shadow Creek n in Las Vegas final month has given her hope.
“There’s been sufficient good in there to see the good thing about it, even when there may be some rising pains,” mentioned the present world quantity 73, who should stay inside the highest 75 when the rankings are up to date subsequent week to safe her place alongside qualifier Olivia Mehaffey within the US Girls’s Open at Riviera Nation Membership in Los Angeles from June 4-7.
Maguire’s transfer to Foley is designed to create extra width, a better flip, increased ball flight, and added distance, which she believes she wants to succeed in the following stage.
“It is good to be going into some greens with a membership much less,” mentioned the previous world novice primary, who has already added seven or eight yards to her drives.
“There’s been a couple of golf programs we have gone again to this 12 months that I have been capable of carry a couple of bunkers that I wasn’t capable of carry earlier than.”
Attending to the US Girls’s Open will assist scale the world rankings, although she has a summer time of Majors in addition to August’s KMPG Girls’s Irish Open at The Okay Membership forward of her.
“I am nonetheless ready on the cut-off for the world rating class,” she mentioned of Riviera. “Hopefully that stays the place it is at.”
As for the Solheim Cup within the Netherlands in September, captain Anna Norqvist may have 4 picks to complement the 2 automated qualifiers from the European Solheim Cup rankings and the six highest-ranked Europeans on the planet after the AIG Girls’s Open reduce off on August 2.
“I would like to be in Holland in September – a house Solheim Cup,” she mentioned. “The aim is to try to get my general rating again up and make the crew robotically, and never must depend on a decide or something like that.”
Foley predicted that it might take as much as six months to see important outcomes, and Maguire is hopeful she’s about to reap the advantages of their onerous work.
“He is a really assured and optimistic individual,” she mentioned. ”When issues aren’t going fairly as effectively, it is good to have that positivity.”
The hassle, she believes, is well worth the dangers concerned.
“After I in the end stroll away from my profession,” she mentioned, “I wish to know I’ve left no stone unturned – that I actually tried to maximise each ingredient of my recreation.”
