DURHAM, N.C. -- For Duke golf star Leona Maguire, a trip to Oregon for the NCAA Championships in late May stood as the most important tournament of the year on her college calendar.

But once it ended, with the Blue Devils reaching the semifinals before falling to Stanford, Maguire's attention shifted immediately to the start of a new season — a summer schedule loaded with major international events that will culminate with a trip to Brazil for the 2016 Rio Olympics.

The 60-player field for the first Olympic golf tournament since 1904 was determined on July 11, based on a worldwide ranking metric that listed Maguire at No. 50. Maguire will be representing her native Ireland when Olympic medals go up for grabs over 72 holes at Rio's newly-constructed Reserva De Marapendi course on Aug. 17-20, just before the start of her junior year with the Blue Devils.

Finding that pot of gold medal opportunity at the end of her summer rainbow will fulfill a lifelong dream for the two-time Duke All-America.

“The Olympics has been a goal of mine since I was a little kid,” she noted recently. “I didn't know what sport it was going to be in. It's great now that golf is back in the Olympics. My schedule this summer was based on playing in as many pro events as I can to try to make that cut for the deadline in July.

“I'm just going to have to play as well as I can and wait it out and see what happens, but the Olympics are as big as it gets for any sport. I know there has been a little debate over majors vs. Olympics but for me an Olympic gold medal is as big as they come, so I'm going to be trying to do my very best to be there.”

Maguire harbored Olympic dreams while watching the spectacle every four years as a youngster in Cavan, Ireland. She competed in several sports, most notably swimming, before she and her twin sister Lisa began concentrating on golf at the age of 10. Golf wasn't an Olympic sport then, but now that it has returned Leona has put herself in prime position to realize the dream.

Ranked as the No. 1 amateur in the world for most of the past year, Maguire has enjoyed two successful seasons at Duke with four tournament titles and a host of accolades, including the 2015 ANNIKA Award as national player of the year following her freshman campaign.

But she has also sparkled on other stages, such as finishing as the runner-up at the European Masters and winning the stroke play portion of the Ladies British Open Amateur last summer.

During the middle of the recent Duke spring season she played in the first LPGA major of the year, the ANA Inspiration in California. As soon as the Duke season ended she headed back home to represent Great Britain and Ireland in the prestigious Curtis Cup competition against the United States. It was her third time to participate in the event, and she won four of her five matches to help GB&I take the title — on home soil just south of Dublin.

Her hectic summer of '16 schedule then took her to Scotland for the Ladies British Open Amateur, where she reached the quarterfinals. After that she was slated to play in the U.S. Women's Open during Fourth of July week in California, and the Women's British Open in Woburn, England at the end of July. Her invites to the two professional majors came courtesy of her selection as the 2015 Mark McCormack Medal winner, an honor bestowed annually on the leading player in the World Amateur Golf rankings.

Dan Brooks, Duke's Hall of Fame head coach, expects Maguire to deal with the rigors of the summer and the road to Rio with a maturity that belies her 21 years of age.

“There has not been a player on my team that handles things better than Leona Maguire,” Brooks said. “That ought to be her middle name, handle — she handles weather, difficult golf courses, extremely tight scheduling, academics. She's just a really strong kid.

“The thing she has to be smart about is that everybody needs rest. I'm sure that what she does in her planning is to make sure she has time to rest, and that's not an automatic for her. As long as between all these tournaments she rests herself, she'll be fine. She'll be ready to play in everything.”

Maguire says she will also be ready to savor and grow from all these summer experiences as she continues to develop a game that can one day thrive long-term in the professional environment.

“Any time you play in a big event with players that are on a world-class stage, that are playing on that stage day in and day out — I'm not — but any time you get to play against people that are better, you learn things,” she said. “Hopefully I can bring the experiences I've had from those events in the past and build off them and do even better than I have in the past.”

While pro golf may be a decidedly individual endeavor in most circumstances, Maguire relishes her opportunities to play the sport now as part of a team. She refers to the recent GB&I Curtis Cup victory as one of the best team experiences she's ever had — “We all wanted to win so badly” — and the possibility of being in the Irish delegation at Rio could multiply those feelings to another level.

“Any time you get to represent a team, when you are playing for other people, it's obviously a huge honor,” she said. “I always like to play as part of a team. It's nice to know that there are people there who have your back and that you are playing for something bigger than yourself. Any time you get to represent your country it's huge, it's a great honor. It's not something that you get to do all that often, so when you do get to do it on a big stage it's special.

“But playing for Duke is also incredibly special and it's a wonderful opportunity. It's apples and oranges. It's kind of hard to compare the two, but it's great to do both.”

Brooks expects his All-American to benefit greatly from her summer challenges, as have the many other Blue Devils across his 32 years who have pursued top amateur championships and LPGA majors while navigating their college years.

“It's really fun to watch them when I can go and be there — it's fantastic,” he noted. “But it's really great because every time they play in something like this, they are so much better prepared for what we do. When you play in a really important big event with all the best players, everything seems a little easier after that. It's great experience.”