Europe take 7-5 lead into singles

JUNIOR SOLHEIM CUP 2011: TURN INTO Knightsbrook Hotel and Golf resort. Follow the knot of people, maybe 150 of them, some with umbrellas up, some down. It was a low sky, grey and squalling in the heart of Meath and a stout band of all-weather golfers had gathered hard in the slipstream of Leona and Lisa Maguire.

The minis of the Solheim Cup kicked off their junior tournament yesterday with the Maguire twins, paired together in the morning foursomes and showing that at 16 years old, there was little that was small about the dimensions of their golf game. Lisa in pink top, Leona in white, the two played as they always do, with merciless efficiency and without fuss.

Both had represented Europe two years ago as 14-year-olds when the USA won the event at the Aurora Club in Illinois but yesterday as veterans of sorts a solemn glance from beneath their Euro caps and an occasional jerk of the thumb between the two was as vocal as the twins got. Theirs is a vocabulary of nods and looks, their faces reddened from the winning of an array of European and Irish tournaments throughout this year.

Their morning American opponents were the feisty McKenzie Talbert from South Carolina and Kentucky’s Emma Talley. Talbert was the motivator; uniformed in red, white and blue; lace in her hair, the stars and stripes on her face. “There’s someone standing in the middle of the fairway up there,” complained Talley three holes from home. The Irish sisters barely moved their eyes.

“They’re gone. Bomb it,” instructed Talbert, her eyes following the perfect Talley drive to a resting place in the middle of the fairway. “Way to go, baby doll.” The USA fell three holes behind then levelled over four holes between the 13th and 16th, the match going down to the par-three 18th over water, which the American pair had to win. It was halved. The Maguire sisters embraced; winners at one up.

And so it went, high fives, knuckle touches, face paint and screams of ‘get up’ from the Americans. Europe broke for lunch 5-1 ahead after the six morning foursomes.

With the brighter sky came more wind in the afternoon. Lisa, who won the Spanish Ladies Open Amateur Championship in July and became the first Irish winner of the European Women’s Individual Amateur Golf Championship in the Netherlands, was all square in her match through nine in the afternoon with big-hitting English partner, Charley Hull.

Her sister Leona, the Portuguese Ladies Amateur Open champion by 15 strokes, the Irish amateur champion and the youngest, at 16, to have won the British Open Strokeplay championship, was cruising with England’s Lauren Taylor three up through nine.

In all the USA, desperate to claw back lost ground from the morning were up in two matches, Europe up in one match and three all square as the fourballs went through nine holes. The end game would determine that Lisa and Hull would fall one up to Lindsey Weaver and Mariah Stackhouse after some magnificent American putting, including one from off the green at the par-three 16th hole, which edged them in front, and a 30-footer at the 18th.

Leona and Taylor fared much better and finished their afternoon match after the 16th hole winning 3 and 2 against Kyung Kim and Karen Chung. Europe’s Amy Boulden from Wales and Sweden’s Emma Nilsson shook hands all square against Jaye Marie Green and Ashlan Ramsey, as did Celine Boutier and Manon Gidall in their joust with Americans Alison Lee and Esther Lee.

And of the day overall as the pairings finished in cold evening air and watery sunshine, America claimed back four points after their morning rout and now trail 7-5 going into today’s singles.

“I think overall we are happy,” said European team captain Liselotte Neumann. A lot of the matches went down to the last hole so it was very close. It wasn’t like the matches could have ended on holes 14 or 15, they could have gone either way.

“Absolutely a two-point lead is a two-point lead and I would rather have a two-point lead than two behind going into the singles today.”