Leona Maguire: All you need to know about Ireland's gold medal hopeful
Inside the Cavan native's life and golfing achievements as she heads to Paris with medals on her mind
Leona Maguire gets her third Olympic adventure underway this week intending to bring another medal to the table for Ireland.
Two-time LPGA Tour winner Leona Maguire has achieved superstardom In women's golf. In college, she held the record for the most weeks atop the World Amateur Golf ranking. Maguire became the first and only Irish woman to win on the LPGA Tour and Ladies European Tour.
Maguire currently holds five professional wins to her name, with her most recent LPGA win coming by winning the Meijer Classic with a stunning final round 64 to win by two strokes. She would then go on to help Team Europe retain the Solheim Cup in September 2023 at Finta Cortesin in Spain by securing three crucial points on the way to keeping the cup.
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The 29-year-old Maguire is ranked currently 30th in the Rolex Rankings, with her highest ranking coming in 2022 when she was ranked 11th. She has previously played at two Olympic games already, finishing 21st at golf's inaugural Olympic outing in Rio 2016, and 23rd at Tokyo 2020.
She has yet to win a golfing major during her career, her best finish at a major came in 2022 at the Women's British Open where she finished tied for fourth at Muirfield. However, Maguire currently holds the record for the lowest-ever score in a final round of any major championship, and the joint lowest round of any round at a major also with a bogey-free 61 during the final round of the 2021 Evian Championship.
During her rookie Solheim Cup appearance in 2021, she broke the all-time rookie points record at a Solheim or Ryder Cup, earning a total of 4.5 points for Europe during the tournament.
The Cavan native swapped secondary school at Loreto College in the Lake County for Duke University in Durham, North Carolina to play golf, where she became the top-ranked amateur in women's golf before turning pro in 2018.
Leona's parents are schoolteachers Declan and Breda Maguire. She has a brother named Odhran and also has a twin sister. Leona's sister Lisa Maguire, was also a professional golfer but retired in 2019. Lisa was ranked as high as 10th in the world on the World Amateur Golf Ranking in 2011. Leona is the older of the two with their births being separated by 15 minutes.
For as prevalent as Magurie Is on the course, not much is known about her personal life away from golf as she's very keen on keeping things private. Leona has said that if she were in a relationship, it's not something she would feel the need to share, as she prefers to keep her personal life to herself and focus on her golfing achievements.
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