Lisa Maguire winner in Spain
Sixteen year-old Lisa Maguire moved a significant step closer to earning a place in the European team for this year’s PING Junior Solheim Cup, to be played in her home country, at Knightsbrook Resort Spa & Golf Hotel, Co. Meath, Ireland, on September 20th -21st, when she defeated French teenager, Emilie Alonso, by one hole in the final of the Spanish International Ladies’ Amateur Championship at Sherry Golf, Jerez de la Frontera.
Maguire’s victory gave her 80 points and an early lead on the official qualifying list for this year’s PING Junior Solheim Cup match and she could well be joined in the team by her twin sister, Leona, who is currently in third place on the Official Ranking after claiming a share of third place in the stroke play stages at Sherry Golf before losing out by 6 & 4 to Alonso in the quarter finals of the subsequent match play series.
Both Maguire twins, from Slieve Russell, are bidding to make their second appearances in the biennial PING Junior Solheim Cup match, having made their debuts as 14 year-olds during the USA’s 15 ½ - 8 ½ victory over Europe in the 2009 match at Aurora Golf Club in Illinois.
The Maguire sisters are widely regarded as two of Europe’s leading amateurs and they lived up to that reputation with fine performances at Sherry Golf in what was the first of seven official qualifying events for this year’s PING Junior Solheim Cup.
Lisa and Leona will be looking to consolidate their places at the next qualifying event, the Irish Girls’ Under-18 Championship, to be played at Knightsbrook on April 9-10.
The top six players on the PING Junior Solheim Cup Ranking at the end of the final qualifying event, the Girls’ British Open Amateur Championship, at Gullane on August 8-12, will earn automatic places in Europe’s side to face the Americans in what is the sixth match in a series stretching back to 2002. A further six wild card players will be selected before August 15.
Leona Maguire, who arrived in Spain as No. 5 on the official Women’s World Amateur Golf Rankings after a remarkable 15-shot victory in this year’s Portuguese Ladies’ Amateur Championship, posted rounds of 74 and 72 to finish third, behind France’s Ines Lescudier and Vicki Troeltsch, in the stroke play stages. She went on to defeat Spaniard, Mandy Goyos, and Frenchwoman, Alexandra Bonetti, in the match play stages before losing heavily to Alonso a couple of days later.
It was left to Lisa to gain revenge on behalf of her twin sister. She needed 21 holes to defeat compatriot, Danielle McVeigh, in the opening round but then crushed Frenchwoman, Luna Sobrón, 6 & 4 before edging out another fellow Curtis Cup team member, Holly Clyburn, on the 21st having never been ahead until the third extra hole. In the semi-finals the eventual winner defeated Germany’s Antonio Scherer 5 & 3 before claiming the title after an engrossing final against Alonso in which there was never more than one hole between the two competitors.
“I am absolutely thrilled,” Lisa told Brian Keogh, golf correspondent for the Belfast Telegraph. “It was a terrific match and I really had to hold my nerve.”
The attached trophy shows Lisa Maguire posing with the trophy after her win in the Spanish International Ladies’ Amateur Championship at Sherry Golf. (Photo Credit – Mabel Pascual del Pobil).
The PING Junior Solheim Cup, which is open to girls born in 1993 or later, always takes place immediately ahead of The Solheim Cup, this year due to be played at Killeen Castle from September 23-25, 2011.
