The nostalgia is flowing for Leona Maguire at this week’s KPMG Women’s Irish Open as the home favourite experiences a cool full moment at The K Club.
Back in 2006 at the Ryder Cup in Ireland, Leona, along with twin sister Lisa, received the honour of bringing up the prestigious biennial trophy to the stage for the closing ceremony following Team Europe’s heroic victory.
Fast forward two decades and Maguire, now a Team Europe heroine in her own right, is competing at The K Club at her home event as the KPMG Women’s Irish Open heads to the “iconic” venue for the very first time.
“We’ve had a lot of great venues and this year it will be even better than ever,” the 31-year-old said, “It’s such an iconic venue and I have great memories of coming here with my sister and dad for European opens back in the day watching the guys. Then the Ryder Cup in 2006, bringing up the trophy to the closing ceremony. It’s a little bit of a full circle moment to be back here playing at an Irish Open.
“I can’t actually remember how it came about. Some part of it was to do with the Solheim bid [for 2011] going on at the time. I remember mum and dad being approached about the possibility. Tickets at that point were like gold dust and we didn’t have them, it was one of those, ‘can we do this and then watch the Ryder Cup?’ It just kind of got better and better.
“I was definitely nervous bringing it up. We were only 11. I remember the lid was a little wobbly so they blue-tacked it shut to make sure we didn’t drop it! Very cool memories.”
Ian Woosnam’s European side achieved a record-equalling win on the Palmer North Course back in 2006. This year, Maguire and the stars of the Ladies European Tour (LET) will be looking to make their own history as the KPMG Women’s Irish Open tees up on the neighbouring Palmer South Course.
“There’s some shorter holes on the South,” Maguire explained. “It will be a good test for wedges. Then there’s some holes where you know par is a good score. The back-nine in particular has a few more demanding tee shots. I’d expect scoring to be pretty good this week. It’s going to be entertaining.”
No fewer than 16 Irish players will be taking to the iconic fairways at The K Club looking to become the first Irish winner of the KPMG Women’s Irish Open. This figure represents a record number of home players competing in the competition, something Maguire is full of admiration for.
“It would fantastic [to have an Irish winner],” Maguire said, who remains the only Irishwoman to win on the LET following her victory at the Aramco Team Series – London. “What you ideally want is a home winner of your national open.
“It’s really nice to see so many Irish girls on the LET right now. It’s become really strong. The guys had that for a number of years on the DP World Tour and now it seems the girls have passed them. They’ve dropped in numbers and we’ve significantly gained. It’s a testament to how strong women’s golf is in Ireland right now.
“Aine [Donegan] has been close a couple of times [to winnong on the LET]. Sara [Byrne] and Lauren [Walsh] have been close, Anna Foster has been close. We’ve had some Irish flags up the right end of the leaderboard over the last couple of years so yeah, it would be fantastic to see one of us get it over the line this year.”
Back on the Team Europe front, Maguire will compete at her fourth Solheim Cup next month after captain Anna Nordqvist named the Irish golfer as one of her four wildcard picks for the event at Bernardus Golf.
“I think it’s a very young team and it’s almost going to be a little bit of a changing of the guard,” the Irishwoman said when asked about making the team once again. “It’s quite a new and exciting, young team. Some new rookies, although I guess Lottie [Woad] doesn’t seem like a rookie! But the others will definitely bring some new energy to the team. It should be great and a home Solheim is always special.
“We were there in the Netherlands a few weeks ago and it’s a great venue. The excitement is definitely building. We lost last time out and winning is definitely more fun than losing so there’s definitely some extra incentive there to try and bring the cup back.”
Maguire, 82nd in the Rolex Women’s World Golf Rankings, gets underway at the 2026 KPMG Women’s Irish Open at 8:18am local time on Thursday playing alongside Singapore’s Shannon Tan and amateur Olivia Costello from Ireland.
Follow all the action throughout the tournament on our socials – @LETgolf on Instagram, TikTok and X, and Ladies European Tour on YouTube and Facebook – #KPMGWIO.
