The LPGA Tour’s newest multiple champion stayed hot. Just days after lifting the Meijer Classic for her second win stateside, Leona Maguire – sticking to her routine with the sort of discipline that has elevated her to 12th in the Rolex world rankings – hit every fairway and every green-in-regulation in opening with a superb two-under-par 69 in the KPMG Women’s PGA Championship at iconic Baltusrol Golf Club in New Jersey.
Maguire, bidding to become the first Irishwoman to win a Major, moved into a share of the clubhouse lead alongside Norway’s Celine Borge and Japan’s Ayaka Furue after another display of strategically working her way around the course and playing to her strengths of accuracy off the tee and good approach with both irons and her favourite nine-wood when required.
After five straight pars, Maguire claimed back-to-back birdies on the sixth and seventh and dropped a shot on the eighth after three-putting. A superb approach to four feet on the 11th set up another birdie and, after bogeying the 13th, the Cavan golfer finished strongly, narrowly missing a birdie putt on the 17th before converting from 10 feet on the 18th.
“Overall a pretty solid day. I think it is just managing energy levels. It’s a tough golf course, you have to be physically and mentally sharp so it is a case of being really disciplined out there and for the most part I did a really good job of that,” said Maguire.
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Describing her round as “stress free,” Maguire added: “I hit every fairway today which I think was really key and had as much control into the greens as I could have. I didn’t hole quite as many putts as I would have liked to but hit every green and every fairway and can’t really ask for much more than that.”
Stephanie Meadow, meanwhile, opened with a two-over par 73 which put the Northern Irishwoman in a strong position to survive the midway cut in this second women’s Major of the season.
Shane Lowry defied some fatigue to fire a fine opening round 64 in the Travelers championship at TPC Highlands in Cromwell, Connecticut, which got him straight into the business part of proceedings in the $20 million designated event on the PGA Tour.
Playing for the fourth straight week, Lowry’s bogey-free round featured six birdies – the longest from 27 feet on the Par 3 eighth hole – in which he played beautifully, hitting 16 of 18 greens-in-regulation and scrambling well to save par on the two he missed to trail clubhouse leader Keegan Bradley by two shots.
In the past, Lowry had tended to skip the Travelers as he turned his attention to Europe with the Irish Open penciled in for this part of the DP World Tour itinerary in recent years. However, its switch to a September date (at The K Club), meant Lowry – chasing FedEx Cup points – added it to his scheduling.
And with good reward, as it happened: “It kind of made sense to play. I haven’t played [The Travelers] much over the years because I normally got home to Ireland straightaway after the US Open, so it never really fit into my schedule. The fact it’s an elevated event is one of the reasons I’m [playing], but I also need some FedEx Cup points, so I’ll hopefully pick up some this week,” said Lowry, who got off to a good start when hitting a lob wedge to six feet on his second hole to kick-start his round.
He explained: “I didn’t really expect much, just go out there and try and hit some good shots and make a few birdies and see where it left me. Maybe it’s a frame of mind I probably need to get myself into a little bit more. I drove it good. If you start hitting it off line and getting in the rough it can get a bit tricky. My iron play has been good, it’s generally a strength of my game.”
On the DP World Tour, Tom McKibbin – who secured his breakthrough win in the European Open last month – continued his good form with an opening round of four-under-par 68 in the BMW International in Munich to lie in a share of 10th place, four strokes behind co-leaders Adrien Saddier, Edoardo Molinari and Riku Hoshino.
