1 week Ago
Leona Maguire is projected to miss out on next week’s $11 million CME Group Tour Championship after she missed the cut in The ANNIKA at Pelican. The Cavan star came into the week ranked 57th in Race to the CME Globe standings, but after following an opening 72 with a level par 70, she was projected to miss the cut and slip to 61st in the standings, missing the season-ending event. Only the top 60 points earners and ties earn a spot into the season finale with the entire field competing for a $11 million purse and $4 million winner’s cheque, the largest single prize in the history of women’s golf.
The ANNIKA driven by Gainbridge at Pelican is the last chance for players to earn their way into the final event of the LPGA Tour season, and those outside of the top-60 are fighting to secure their spot. Maguire’s fate will depend on those chasing her. Gaby Lopez is projected to move from 61st to 58th as she shares eighth place on five-under with Spain’s Carlota Ciganda, who is projected to move from 63rd to 60th if she maintains her position.
The second round of The ANNIKA was suspended due to darkness and will resume at 7:00 a.m. local time today.
England’s Charley Hull added a 66 to her opening 64 to lead by two shots from Nelly Korda on 10-under as she bids to end her two-year winning drought on the LPGA Tour. Maguire made an excellent start with four birdies in her first six holes before she doubled-bogeyed the par-five seventh and bogeyed the eighth. She got a shot back at the 11th but further bogeys at the 12th and 16th left her on the wrong side of the cut line with just three players left to complete their second rounds this morning.
“I think it's quite a short golf course. It is quite a short golf course, so you have a lot of wedges coming in,” Hull said. “You have to be quite accurate with your shots, and the greens are super-fast.
It's a good, fun course to play.” Maguire won on the Aramco Team Series-London on the Ladies European Tour in July, but having reached a career-high of 10th in the Rolex Women’s World Golf Rankings in July 2023, she's currently 45th. She's recorded just one top 10 on the LPGA Tour this year, losing to world number one Korda in the final of the T-Mobile Match Play in Las Vegas in April.
But also it’s been a frustrating year for her in the game’s biggest events. Cut in the Chevron Championship and the US Women’s Open, she was 24th in the KPMG Women’s PGA but missed the cut in the Evian Championship and fell ill at the Olympics, where she finished 59th of 60. She tied for 37th in the AIG Women’s Open but was never a factor in the KPMG Women’s Irish Open at Carton House and, controversially, played just twice in Europe’s Solheim Cup defeat in September as skipper Suzann Pettersen left her out of three of the first four sessions.
Statistically, she's gained a few yards off the tee but fallen further in the driving distance charts. She's also outside the top 45 for putting, having ranked ninth in 2022 and 31st last year for putts per green in regulation..
