In golf the numbers keep spinning and the counting never stops.
Every ball struck in a professional tournament is logged and measured and blended into other numbers. Gathered together they amount to the bigger picture, in a million pixels. Their significance are a matter of interpretation, but the numbers are inescapable.
So, Shane Lowry finished 78th in the FedEx Cup standings, missing out on the play-offs by eight places; in another column in the giant ledger – the strokes gained putting category – he was outside the top 100 on the PGA Tour.
If you were in a hurry, you could link those two numbers as a blatant cause and effect. His game bled from his putter. He couldn’t stop the bleeding. Could it be that simple?
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Whatever you might feel about the ticker tape of numbers rolled out in professional golf, they are bound to have consequences. The European Team for the Ryder Cup will be announced in three weeks’ time and Lowry is not among the six automatic qualifiers. On the Ryder Cup website, four players are named as being “on the bubble” but there is no sign of Lowry on that list either.
Of the “bubble” players, Yannik Paul and Adrian Meronk are above him on the European points list; Matt Fitzpatrick and Sepp Straka are higher on the World points list – and in the official world rankings for that matter.
The three remaining counting tournaments on the DP World Tour are not big enough to make an appreciable difference to Lowry, even though he is likely to play in two of them now. To mount a late charge for an automatic spot he really needed to make the FedEx play-offs and go bananas.
The upshot is that, just like two years ago, Lowry will need a captain’s pick. In 2021 he arrived at Wentworth for the final qualifying tournament, holding on to the last automatic place on the team. At a course he loves Lowry handled the pressure admirably for three days, but he didn’t fire on Sunday and went bogey-double bogey in the middle of his back nine.
Pádraig Harrington’s picks were Lowry, Sergio Garcia and Ian Poulter. The player squeezed out was Justin Rose.
After a resurgent season, with his first PGA Tour win in four years, the Englishman finished the regular season 47 spots above Lowry on the FedEx Cup standings, and it is hard to imagine that Luke Donald will overlook Rose as one of his wild cards this time. All of which leaves Lowry sweating far more than he should be.
Lowry’s feelings about the Ryder Cup are unambiguous. In 2018 he dropped to number 92 in the world at one stage and wasn’t even in the conversation for a captain’s pick. But his determination to make it next time round was luminous: “When the points race started it was my number one goal, and it has been for the last two years,” Lowry said.
Even though Europe were beaten by a record margin at Whistling Straits, Lowry was one of the few European players to emerge with some credit. More than that, he was intoxicated by the whole thing.
“The most incredible experience ever, honestly,” he said to Paul Kimmage in the Sunday Independent six months later. “I sat down on the Sunday evening afterwards and I said, ‘I cannot believe I have to wait another two years for that.’”
This time round there are just six automatic spots, three of which are currently occupied by Robert MacIntyre, Tyrell Hatton and Tommy Fleetwood. None of them has won a Major. Are any of them more talented than Lowry? The numbers are cold; they don’t have an opinion.
What has happened Lowry this season? In three of the Majors he produced creditable performances and top-20 finishes, but he managed only one top 10 on the regular tour – at the Honda Classic, way back in February.
Splitting from his caddie Brian ‘Bo’ Martin a few weeks before Honda was upsetting and disruptive, but his form had been dull before that. At the Hero Cup in January – a Ryder Cup warm-up between Continental Europe and Great Britain and Ireland – Lowry was the only one of the 20 players who failed to win even half a point.
Lowry changed to a shorter putter without any bounce. His numbers were still destructive; in putts per round he was ranked 111th; in putts inside ten feet he was 166th. The putter was killing him.
Golf is brutal. Brilliant players lose their mojo all the time. It happened to Brooks Koepka a couple of years ago and to Justin Thomas this year; Jordan Spieth experienced it for an insufferable period of time.
And not all breakthrough Major winners build on that success. Look at Danny Willett in 2016, or Francesco Molinari two years later, or Gary Woodland a year after that. For Lowry, winning The Open at Portrush was beyond his wildest dreams.
“I got to achieve one of the biggest things I’ll ever do,” he said in Roots, a short documentary on Sky Sports. “It’s probably going to be the highlight of my career. I’m happy with that. I can live with that.”
But there’s no way he’s satisfied, Lowry has made that clear many times. Behind the ready smile and the natural warmth is a serious competitor. How else could he have got here? He’s not coasting; he’s struggling.
With his talent, though, has he done as much as he should have by now? Six tournament wins in 15 seasons. Some of them massive tournaments, but just six. There must be more in him. Graeme McDowell had won 12 tournaments by Lowry’s age – 36 – and played in three Ryder Cups. Is McDowell more talented than Lowry? Not a chance.
Donald would be foolish not to pick Lowry and the odds are he will. His temperament is proven and with his infectious personality he would be a desirable partner for anybody.
But the captain will have to believe that he’s picking the player who won the BMW PGA at Wentworth last September with a staggering performance, without committing a bogey. He has that in him.
Lowry is in his prime. He can’t afford this season’s form to leak into another year. Maybe the Ryder Cup will ignite him. He’s not alone. Every golfer is looking for solutions. The game never stops asking, the numbers never stop spinning. It’s brutal.
