Leona Maguire Intent on Thriving in Olympics Stage for Team Ireland

She speaks during a press conference during a training session ahead of the women’s individual chase competition on day 11 of the Paris 2024 Olympic Games at the Golf National in Paris, France, on August 6, 2024.

SAINT-QUENTIN-EN-YVELINES, France — The word is that Leona Maguire enjoys an electric atmosphere. The Solheim Cup is part of its DNA, but this week it will make its mark on the Olympics.

With an Irish woman competing in the world’s biggest sporting event for the third time, Paris 2024 should provide an equal stage for her to shine. At Rio 2016, Maguire was still an amateur, just taking part in the fun, but the Tokyo Games were held behind closed doors amid the pandemic.

This week is different. After sampling the great crowds that were in attendance for the men’s competition as a fan for Sunday’s thrilling finale, Maguire is relishing experiencing it for real as a player with near sell-out crowds expected once again as the best women in the game tee it up at Le Golf National.

“Out watching the guys at the weekend, there\’s a lot of Irish jerseys, and it felt like we were closer to home rather than France,” she said at a pre-tournament press conference on the eve of the competition. “He has almost this kind of atmosphere Solheim Cup / Ryder Cup with the stands and the crowd.

“I think it’s going to be very exciting, and this is one of those things where you want to do as well as possible to give fans as much as you can.”

It was during her beginnings of the Solheim Cup in 2021 that Maguire stole the spectacle when she raised 4½ points to make history as the first European scorer in a single Solheim cup. Two years later, she was again a driving force in Europe when they managed three points against Finca Cortesin, despite the possibility of five points from a draw. The more fans she has, the better, not worse, she often performs. On the other hand, unlike a large championship and the Solheim Cup in this regard, the Olympics are another platform that shows the depth of women’s games for viewers around the world.

“These are the Olympics,” Magwire said about the similarity of other large golf events. “It’s the biggest sporting event in the world.

“For me, my first experience at the Solheim Cup was one of the great things that came out of this tournament back home in Ireland was that there were so many people watching golf that would never normally watch, and so many people watching women’s golf for the first time. Watching women’s sport and women’s golf. And I think the same is probably true of the Olympic Games as well. I met quite a few Irish people walking around over the weekend.”

As Maguire alludes to, there is a real buzz in the Ireland camp at these Olympics. They have already enjoyed their most successful Summer Games ever, winning seven medals, surpassing the record six they won at the 2012 London Olympics.

Those medal-winning performances have served as a source of inspiration this week for Maguire, who aims to do what Rory McIlroy and Shane Lowry failed to do in the men’s competition. “I was at home in Ireland last week and the whole country was in a frenzy and everyone was talking about winning a medal in swimming for the first time in a long time and then tonight (Tuesday) it was decided in boxing,” she said. “These have been the most successful tournaments in Irish history. We’ve just won the Olympics and it’s great to see the Irish succeeding on the same stage. You want to be a part of it. “You want to sit at home and see the Irish flag raised on the podium and even better if the national anthem is playing.

“I think you saw Scottie’s game on Sunday and everything he’s won, almost everything he’s won, and how much it means to him. You saw, like (Novak) Djokovic, he’s accomplished everything in tennis and it seemed to mean a lot to him.

Maguire, who finished 21st and 23rd respectively in her last two Olympics, was joined this week by fellow Irishwoman Stephanie Meadow as the pair become among 15 of 60 players to have played in each of the last three Olympic golf tournaments.

They’re doing it on a new course in their professional careers and Maguire is excited about the challenge of the Albatross course. “It’s really going to test every part of my game. I think whoever wins a medal this week is going to have to play really good golf,” she said. This is exactly how the Olympics should be.