Boutier denies claims she refused to play with Maguire at Solheim Cup
"Completely false" - Celine Boutier hits back at claims by Handicap 54 she refused to play alongside Leona Maguire at Solheim Cup.
Celine Boutier has denied all talk she refused to play with Ireland's Leona Maguire in the Friday fourballs at the Solheim Cup last week.
According to the Handicap54 account on Twitter, Boutier, 29, allegedly asked to be paired with another player after England's Georgia Hall performed 'below par' in her Friday morning foursomes match.
Boutier and Hall lost their match 1 down to Danielle Kang and Andrea Lee.
Handicap54 then alleges as a result of refusing to play with Maguire in the fourballs, she was benched for the afternoon session.
In fact it was a disastrous opening session all round for Europe as they went 4-0 down.
Team Europe would, however, recover incredibly over the weekend to see out a 14-14 tie and retain the Solheim Cup.
But back to the original story and Boutier has since responded to allegations she refused to partner with Maguire on Friday afternoon.
As for the exact reason why Boutier played no part in the fourballs on Friday or Saturday remains unknown.
Handicap54 initially reported about the Boutier exchange on 23 September but didn't divulge any names:
I tell a “funny” situation that I found out about @thesolheimcup , from different sources. I'm not going to name names, for now.
Captain of one of the two teams receives the request from one of her best players (player A), who complained about the level of her teammate (player…— HANDICAP 54 (@handicap_54) September 23, 2023
The account then went further:
Yes, the golfer was Céline Boutier. And I wanted to wait for the celebrations to pass and I wanted that the names were saying by the friends of Golf Sin Etiquetas (@gfcgolf and @alexlarrazabal1 ), who had the same information and were on the course (I considered that they had…
— HANDICAP 54 (@handicap_54) September 25, 2023
Boutier, who won her maiden major title this year at the Evian Championship, addressed the subject of Maguire in an interview with Ouest France on September 27.
While Boutier responded in her native French language, we have translated her comments in the below quote.
Boutier said:
Boutier's caddie has also since responded to us at GolfMagic by confirming the claims from Handicap54 "could not be further from the truth."
Maguire's management team have also reached out to us to confirm the allegations from Handicap54 about refusing to play with the Irish star are false.
Boutier did play in the Saturday foursomes with Hall, but they once again lost, this time by a heavier scoreline of 5&3 to Nelly Korda and Allisen Corpuz.
Boutier was then benched again for the Saturday fourballs.
She then went 0-3 for the week when losing 2&1 to Angel Yin in the Sunday singles.
Maguire enjoyed a brilliant week taking three points from a possible five.
Hall earned 1.5 pts from a possible four.
Since reading Boutier's latest comments on September 27, the Handicap54 Twitter account has come back for some more, at least on the subject of Boutier and Hall.
Handicap 54 has since tweeted:
If Celine Boutier had seen this, she would have denied the situation of Hall too. This is not the first time that a player/part of the team players has tried to "deny" a conflict in the Solheim Cup/Ryder Cup. But I respect their "denial". I still stand my tweet (much more, after…
— HANDICAP 54 (@handicap_54) September 27, 2023
Andy first joined the brand on a month's work experience back in April 2011, and he now assumes the Editor role. When Andy joined GolfMagic it was a small site with potential.
