Our International 20×20 Women in Sport Award this week goes to two of our 20×20 Ambassadors, Leona Maguire and Stephanie Meadow, for their golfing achievements over the last weekend that saw them make Irish golfing history on the world stage. Next year for the first time ever, Ireland will have two players playing weekly on the US LPGA Tour – an incredible achievement. The US Ladies tour is generally acknowledged to be the toughest tour in women’s golf. A truly world stage that is made up of the crème do la crème of professional women’s golfers.
Both Leona and Stephanie arrived there in very different ways. Leona earned her card via two wins and five other top ten finishes on the Symetra Tour Championship what is in fact a circuit known as the pathway to the LPGA. Her performance in the final Symetra Tour Championship event was enough to cement her place in the top ten of that tour – all of whom earned LPGA cards. For Stephanie the challenge was to retain the LPGA card she already had. It all came down to her last event of the season. Entering the event she was 110th in the Order of Merit and knew she needed an exceptional performance to break into the top 100 all of whom would retain their LPGA cards. That she did in some style producing her beast performance of the season to finish tied 6th in the event and to jump up to 99th place in the order of merit thus retaining her card. Her closing round of 67 included birdies at the last two holes – talk about pressure!
Congratulations to both our wonderful ambassadors.