The Cavan golfer speaks to The 42.
Gavin Cooney LEONA MAGUIRE’S MEANING of Christmas: a chance to unwind at home in Cavan and spend more than a couple of nights in a row in her own bed. It also offers her a chance to reflect on 2024, which she politely describes to The 42 as an “up and down year”.
“They are the things I’ll look back on with a lot of fondness in 20 years when I am retired,” says Maguire. “It’s nice to show the girls coming up through the ranks that if I can do it, they can do it too.” Kerry native Verners Tess has been carrying Maguire’s bag since, and the pair will continue to work together in 2025. “Whether I make a birdie or a bogey,” says Maguire of her new caddie, “he is still very positive and keeps me going. I tend to be very harsh and critical on myself. Sometimes I need that.”
“People find it hard to believe but we are on very good terms,” says Maguire when I ask if she has spoken with Pettersen since. “She is still someone I respect and admire a lot. That’s anything with a captain: if you win people think you’re a genius and if you don’t, people have other things to say. She did it her way and that’s all you can ask from a captain.”
In the days leading up to the Solheim Cup, Maguire was urged by Grenfell United – a survivors and bereaved support group for those affected by the Grenfell tower fire of 2017, in which 72 people died and more than 70 people were injured – to end her sponsorship deal with Kingspan, following the publication of the final report of the public inquiry into the disaster.
In a statement following the report, Kingspan said it “extends our deepest sympathies to those impacted by the tragedy”. Committee member Ed Daffarn, a survivor of the fire, repeated those calls ahead of the Solheim Cup, saying if Maguire did not end her Kingspan deal, she was making “a conscious decision to endorse a company that the public inquiry found behaved with ‘persistent dishonesty’.”
“I can’t speak for Shane and his decisions, he is obviously in a very different position at his stage in his career and on the men’s tour. I obviously sympathise with all the victims of Grenfell and their families, but ultimately I am a golfer first and foremost and Kingspan have been supportive of me and I have made the decision to stand by them.”
Leona Maguire The Year That Was
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