Leona Maguire, four back at KPMG, still dealing with aftermath of tick bites at Erin Hills
FRISCO, Texas – Leona Maguire doesn't typically wear sun sleeves on the golf course. But, after suffering from several tick bites at the U.S. Women's Open at Erin Hills, the Irishwoman went on a round of doxycycline, and it has wreaked havoc on her skin.
The medication is meant to reduce the chance of contracting Lyme disease, and she's just finished up the two-week treatment. She wore pants last week at the Meijer but couldn't bring herself to do it this week in steamy Texas.
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'It's made my skin like tissue paper,' said Maguire, who has a particularly nasty blood blister on her right hand that she said looks like a pepperoni. Her twin sister Lisa, who recently graduated from dental school, dressed the wound twice during Round 1 of the KPMG Women's PGA Championship.
Maguire opened with an even-par 72 at Fields Ranch East course to sit four strokes back of leader Jeeno Thitikul.
After four consecutive missed cuts, Maguire has found something with her driver after switching back to last year's model. She also went back to her old putter — almost. Maguire's Ping rep has always had a backup putter at his house that was identical to her longtime putter, and she asked him to bring it out to Texas this week.
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For the last few weeks, she'd been trying a center-shafted putter.
'Sometimes, what do they say, a rest is as good as a change,' said Maguire. 'It's nice to have this familiar putter.'
This article originally appeared on Golfweek: Leona Maguire still dealing with aftermath of tick bites at Erin Hills
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Additionally, CBS reported a 13 percent year-over-year ratings increase and a 19 percent year-over-year increase at signature events. Many other metrics are ticking in the right direction, such as its digital platforms.] 'Seeing the success in renewing full-field title sponsorships for long-term deals in the 9-plus-million-dollar per range that's impressive – that's really impressive. It speaks to the fact that these full-field events feel that they're getting good value. And you know it's marked and measurable to see that their fields are stronger than they were when the invitational events that had 120-player fields and then obviously the first year of signature events, they still played at their regular field sizes. That was crushing the full field events and sponsors were really concerned and now to see the momentum where sponsors are back supporting the full-field events at really nice purse levels – that's a huge win for the entire membership.' Malnati wanted them to hear that directly from him and also address the elephant in the room, what he termed 'the thing that we all hate the most, which is the smaller fields and the signature events and the upcoming reduction of fully-exempt cards from 125 to 100 for next season. 'That is simply a re-prioritizing of PGA Tour members that takes guys who go out and play a season on the Korn Ferry Tour and finish in the top 20 and says to them you deserve starts in all the full-field events and I think that's absolutely true now. Is it a great accomplishment to finish in the top 125 on the PGA Tour? It is, it's really good. Is it an even greater accomplishment to finish in the top 100? Yes, I've achieved that twice in my 10 seasons on Tour. I shared that with the membership yet I still think this was the right thing to do because the point of everything we're doing is to identify players who can become superstars and drive the brand forward and so we've got to give those guys that graduate from the Korn Ferry Tour a fair shot to play and so I think going from 125 cards to 100 and then putting the guys that finish 101 to 125 in the next-best conditional category after the Korn Ferry Tour graduates was absolutely the right thing to do even though in a way I was cutting my own head off.' New PGA Tour system to closer mimic Formula 1 How many players would support a decision that might be 'cutting their own head off?' Malnati realizes that barely any players outside the top 100 on Tour generate standalone attention. Sure, there are exceptions like Joel Dahmen (and Tiger Woods wouldn't be Tiger Woods without fields of 156 to beat up on). But fewer players in the arena make it easier for the Tour to market players, easier for fans to know more contenders on a leaderboard, and it's more assuring to sponsors that top-tier players contend or win in their tournaments. Look no further than F1, which is its most popular now, with just 20 drivers who all drive in every race. Same with NASCAR. Athletes in team sports are expected to play in every one of their teams' games. 'Then lastly shared the fact that the system while it creates a very narrow funnel, I said the whole point of what we're doing – the Tour doesn't want to use this language quite this bluntly – we're identifying the top players and get them competing against each other more regularly,' Malnati said. 'So, yes, the signature event model caters to top players, it does, but the thing that I want everyone in that room and everyone on Tour and every fan and every partner to realize is that even though smaller fields are inherently a little bit less competitive because there's fewer guys, the system (we're implementing) right now there's no rules that rule out anyone. J.J. Spaun was not exempt into a single signature event at the start of this year … and he's currently ranked eighth in the world. He played his way there. Maverick McNealy played his way into the top 10 in the world – I think he's 14 right now but he was top 10 in the world. Ben Griffin and Andrew Novak, in terms of everything they're able to accomplish now on Tour, they have played their way into that group of top players. They're going to qualify for the BMW Championship this year, be fully exempt for signature events next year and they've played their way into it. 'This system is aspirational,' Malnati continued. 'The funnel is small, but the opportunity is there and it's still objective. It's still golf. If you shoot low enough scores, you will be there, so, I closed by saying my challenge to Brian Rolapp is to continue to grow the opportunity on the PGA Tour. I want to see him grow it for top players, I want to see him grow it for every single member and my challenge to all the members in the room was to go be as competitive as you can be and believe. But the guys who shoot the best scores are our top players and the more that we do that, the more that we go out and put on a show and strive to become top players, the better our product is, the more fans are going to engage with it and the more opportunity will be for everyone. So that was my spiel …. I'm glad someone thought to call it impassioned. I felt very passionate about it. I still feel very passionate about it but it's definitely been hard.'
