The damn statistics tell you it is hard to win on tour, offering an incisive telltale reminder each and every week of the level of difficulty. For Shane Lowry, a victory in the BMW PGA Championship — all of three years, one month and 22 days since his 2019 British Open success — only served to underscore how tough it is to notch up “Ws,” but also proved again that he has what it takes to deliver on the biggest stages.
“It seems like I don’t like to do it small when I do [win], so it’s nice to have this on my resumé as well,” said Lowry of winning the European Tour’s flagship tournament to augment a CV that already featured a Major, that Open win at Royal Portrush, and a WGC and, of course, the Irish Open success as an amateur in 2009 that catapulted him into the world of professional golf.
The number crunching came thick and fast at Lowry on the back of an overdue win where he saw off Rory McIlroy, the world number two, and Jon Rahm, the world number six, down the stretch in a flawless display. Lowry moved to number one on Europe’s Ryder Cup qualifying, moved to fifth on the DP World Tour’s Race to Dubai order of merit and to 19th in the updated world rankings.
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On a weekend of standout play from Irish golfers — with Pádraig Harrington earning a third win of the season on the PGA Champions Tour and Stuart Grehan, in the fledgling stages of his professional life, also winning on the third tier EuroPro Tour — Lowry’s performance in claiming a sixth career win clearly whetted his appetite for more going forward as he seeks to make winning more of a regular occurrence.
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Easier said than done, of course, but Lowry’s aim to win at least once a year — between the PGA Tour and the European circuit — is an achievable objective. Indeed, his performance levels in 19 events this year to date, with a win, a runner-up, two thirds and two other top-10s and only one missed cut (at the US Open), provide evidence of much-improved consistency that augurs well going forward.
Lowry is expected to next tee it up at the Alfred Dunhill Links Championship in Scotland in a fortnight’s time while his move to fifth on the Race to Dubai brings him into play for the season-finale Tour Championship in Dubai in November, with McIlroy retaining his place at the top. McIlroy remains in Europe for this week’s Italian Open at Marco Simone resort in Rome, the venue for next year’s Ryder Cup.
And Lowry took a big stride towards ensuring his place on Luke Donald’s team, jumping to the head of the qualifying:
“This is a great start. Obviously I want it make the team and I want to make it easy for Luke. I feel like I can be a good addition to the team and we can go to Rome and challenge and win that Ryder Cup back. I’m very excited that this is the start of the points and that I’ve made some good points this week and I’m hoping in the next few months to make the team automatically and go to Rome in whatever it is, 12 months.
“I do think we do have a really good core of good players in Europe right now, and I just think it would be great to see a couple of the younger lads stand up over the next 12 months and make the team and then we go to Rome all guns blazing and win the Cup back.”
Lowry made his debut for Europe at last year’s Ryder Cup in Whistling Straits where, despite the defeat, he showed his temperament and game is tailor-made for the match play fare.
In the aftermath of his win, and before the celebrations carried on into the wee hours, Lowry also acknowledged the contributions made by his caddie Bo Martin and his coach Neil Manchip.
Of the input from Manchip, who first took Lowry under his guidance as part of the GUI junior set-up, Lowry said:
“I have known Neil for over 18 years. It’s been a long kind of relationship. We’re very close and it’s much more of a golf or business working relationship. We are very friendly. He probably knows more about me than anybody else. Any time I’m struggling, he knows what I’m doing to get me back.
“I feel like out on tour, it’s easy to get distracted by coaches and everything, what everyone else is doing. I feel like if you’re good enough to get on tour and you own yourself on do yourself and commit to that, I feel you’ll get further than chopping and changing from coach to coach trying to get better. I always say, you very rarely see players under-coached. You see a lot of players being over-coached. We keep it simple and have our own way to do it.”
McIlroy is one of four Irish players in the field for the Italian Open — along with Jonny Caldwell, Cormac Sharvin and Niall Kearney — while Harrington remains stateside to play in the Sanford International in Sioux Falls, South Dakota, as he attempts to overtake Steve Alker at the top of the Champions Tour order of merit.
