Leona Maguire hopes to tug each component of her recreation collectively for the primary time this season as she performs the opening girls’s main with a brand new caddie on her bag.
The Co Cavan star tees it up within the $8m Chevron Championship at The Membership at Carlton Woods in Texas, trying to see her recreation click on after a strong however unspectacular begin to the season.
Maguire (30) break up with Kerry caddie Verners Tess after an eight-month partnership and he or she’s comfortable to have teamed up with Kinsale’s Shane O’Connell, who previously caddied for John Murphy, in Arizona final month.
“Yeah, to date, so good,” Maguire mentioned on her arrival in Texas. “Shane has come throughout from the lads’s facet, so it has been a studying expertise for him.
“However we have been getting alongside very properly personality-wise. We’re related and each fairly level-headed and it is good to have a fellow Irish particular person on the bag. Identical type of sense of humour and manner of doing issues.
“So I am getting used to him. He is getting used to me and we’re simply making an attempt to adapt in addition to we are able to and study as we go only a few extra.”
After falling from a career-high of tenth on the planet simply 18 months in the past to 63rd this week, Maguire is hoping her improved driving will feed into the remainder of her recreation.
She tied for ninth in her first begin of the season within the Match of Champions and whereas she’s made each minimize since then, she’s nonetheless ready for an additional high end.
“I really feel prefer it’s been taking form properly,” she mentioned of her recreation. “Performed some good golf in LA final week. I obtained a brand new putter within the bag which labored fairly properly.
“It has been constant. I simply must try to get myself into rivalry somewhat bit extra… However I am driving the ball lots higher than I did final 12 months.
“The issues we labored on within the low season are beginning to come collectively fairly properly. I’m simply making an attempt to get all of it to click on collectively in a single week.”
Defending champion Nelly Korda is joint favorite with Thailand’s Jeeno Thitikul to win on a rain-softened course at The Woodlands and Maguire is aware of it will not be straightforward.
“I really feel like the usual yearly goes up and up and it is getting an increasing number of and extra aggressive,” she mentioned.
“I’m making an attempt to play in addition to I can. I really feel like each week I have been doing one thing somewhat bit higher, so simply making an attempt to maintain trending in that route.”
As for the course, she’s prepared for a slog on a observe with difficult greens.
“It is enjoying lengthy this 12 months,” she mentioned. “It is fairly gentle, it is fairly moist.”
Climate delays are possible, however Maguire believes a softer course will enable her to point out off her prowess with the golf green woods.
“It’s going to simply make it lengthy,” she mentioned. “So extra hybrids for me, I assume, which isn’t a nasty factor.”
As for her bid to change into the primary Irishwoman to win a serious, she’s hoping for the most effective in her thirty second main begin and her twenty fifth as knowledgeable.
“Majors are at all times a bit extra of a check than different weeks,” she mentioned. “However, I really feel like now we’ll some nice venues on tour the place the usual of the golf course are getting higher and higher.
“So there’s not as a lot of a niche between regular weeks and main weeks.
“I really feel like LA was a very good check final week. The best way the greens have been so slopey, it was good preparation for this week.
“In the end, whoever performs the most effective this week will win. So that you’re simply making an attempt to have all of the items of your recreation collectively.”
