Leona Maguire makes matchplay semi-finals in Las Vegas

Ireland's Leona Maguire watches the drive of Thailand's Moriya Jutanugarn during their quarter-final match at the T-Mobile Match Play at Shadow Creek Golf Course in Las Vegas, Nevada. Photograph: Orlando Ramirez/Getty Images

Leona Maguire won through to the semi-finals of the T-Mobile Matchplay Championship at Shadow Creek in Las Vegas for a second straight year as she saw off Thailand’s Moriya Jutanugarn 4&3 on Saturday.

Maguire, who gained the number one ranking after topping the scoring after three rounds of strokeplay, was two up inside three holes, but Jutanugarn stole a hole back with a birdie four on the par-five fourth.

A par on the short fifth was enough for Maguire to regain her two-hole lead and it became three up after a birdie two on the eighth. Back-to-back pars on the 11th and 12th to Jutanugarn’s bogeys put Maguire five up with six to play.

Jutanugarn did enjoy one further success on the 14th with a par to Maguire’s bogey but a par at the next sealed victory for the Cavan golfer with three holes left to play.

Maguire will face Sei Young Kim in the semi-finals after the South Korean got the better of an out of sorts Rose Zhang by 6&5, the young American star seven over for the 13 holes of their match.

Nelly Korda’s sensational form continued with a 3&2 win over fellow American Angel Yin as she looks to make it four tournament wins in a row. She will now face South Korea’s Narin An in the last four after her one hole win over Japan’s Minami Katsu.

A third-round 69 for a total of six-under-par 210 gave Maguire a three-stroke margin over the trio of Zhang, Yin and Katsu following the strokeplay, but all those scores are binned headed into the matchplay element of the innovative tournament on the LPGA Tour.

Maguire described heading the qualifiers as a “big mental win” in difficult, windy conditions with firm greens, where her patience on shot execution stood to her.

“It was so challenging and swirly and the winds and stuff, you couldn’t really get too far ahead or focus on anything other than the shot at hand, which I think was quite nice. I personally didn’t watch the leaderboards. I know Dermot [Byrne] was keeping an eye on them if we needed to do something. I kind of leave that to him and was trying to hit as many good shots as I could,” explained Maguire of her own mindset in navigating a route into the knock-outs.

Maguire was third in last year’s event and has again felt very much at home in the desert: “I love this golf course. I think it’s one of the best, if not the best, golf course we play all year. It’s an unbelievable test. It’s really a Major championship golf course. You get punished if you hit bad shots and get rewarded if you hit good shots, and that’s exactly how golf should be I think. I really enjoy the test that it brings. Looking forward to another day [against Jutanugarn].

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Philip Reid is Golf Correspondent of The Irish Times