Leona Maguire and Stephanie Meadow are back on the hunt for a maiden major as they tee it up at this week’s KPMG Women’s PGA Championship.
The third major of the year takes place at the Sahalee Country Club in Sammamish, Washington, 30 kilometres west of Seattle on America’s west coast.
And it is fair to say that neither of the Irish pair are showing the required form to be considered among the favourites to challenge on Sunday.
Maguire slipped out of the world’s top 20 at the tail end of 2023 and has fallen further throughout the first half of 2024, currently ranked 32nd in the Rolex list.
Runner-up to world number one, Nelly Korda, at the T-Mobile Match Play in April was the standout performance for Maguire this year, and a tied-12th finish at the Cognizant Founders Cup last month will offer some element of confidence ahead of this week’s event.
Meadow, similarly, has been moving in the wrong direction in the rankings, having fallen out of the top 100 at the end of 2023.
Currently sitting at 132 on the list, Meadow’s best showing came at the Blue Bay in March, where she finished eighth, however, she arrives at the PGA having missed three cuts in her last four tournaments.
And yet, Meadow has a habit of bringing her best golf to the majors, going right back to her first tournament as a professional, where she finished third at the 2014 US Women’s Open.
She was back in contention at last year’s PGA Championship and ended up in a tie for third place, having also enjoyed a top ten finish in 2022.
Likewise, Maguire was also in contention at Baltusrol Golf Club in New Jersey at last year’s event, and the Cavan native actually took a one-shot lead into the final round as she searched for her first major win to go with the two LPGA Tour events that she has won.
Maguire would eventually end up in 11th place after a disappointing final round, however, she has enjoyed three top-ten finishes in the majors and will have the belief to contend this weekend.
There are nine past winners in this year’s field, including defending champion Ruoning Yin, as well as Sei Young Kim (2020), Hannah Green (2019), Danielle Kang (2017), Brooke Henderson (2016), Yani Tseng (2011, 2008), Cristie Kerr (2010) and Anna Nordqvist (2009).
World number one, Korda, completes that list, having secured the trophy in 2021, and she will, once again, be the one to beat as the standout player in 2024 with six wins, including her second major title at this year’s Chevron Championship.
The American has offered the field a glimmer of hope, however, having missed the cut at her last two tournaments, last month’s US Women’s Open and the LPGA Meijer Classic last weekend.
But Korda is staying positive coming into this major week.
"You can dwell on the negatives but that’ll never lead you anywhere, so I try to look at the positives," she said.
"I’m going to go through these situations, so many times, where I feel like I’m playing really well, and then I’ll go through a little lull where golf is the hardest thing in my life right now.
"I’m just going to stay in my bubble this week and I’m going to go out and try to execute my shots, be confident in what I have.
"This golf course is already hard enough. If I’m going to put more pressure on myself, then I think it’s just going to make it even harder."
A true test awaits at the Sahalee track, which has previously hosted a World Golf Championship and the US Senior Open.
The Ted Robinson-designed course was reworked by Rees Jones in 1996 and again in 2022 and the par-72 track is playing 6,731 yards this week.
Sahalee means 'high heavenly ground', and the tree-lined course – there are over 7,500 of them – should prove as tough a track, if not tougher, than it did when it last hosted the tournament in 2016, where Canadian Brooke Henderson secured the title, beating Lydia Ko after a play-off.
There is an eight-hour time difference, which means that Maguire, who is among the early starters, tees off alongside Japan’s Ayaka Furue and England’s Charley Hull at 4:22pm (Irish time).
Meadow is among the late tee times and heads out for the opening two rounds in the company of Cheyenne Knight from the USA and Japan’s Mao Saigo. They tee off at 10:01pm.
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