His final act was pure theatre. Well, almost. Shane Lowry’s chip from the swale to the left of the 18th green rose upwards and onwards and this Srixon ball – with the number 15, the same shirt number as his dad Brendan had worn for the Offaly footballers back in the day – smacked into the flagstick to settle a couple of feet away.
“I’ll give you that Shane,” came a roar from the packed galleries. There are no gimmes in this championship where every strokes counts, and Lowry – recovered from the virus that had stricken him on Saturday – rolled in the putt, the 66th stroke of a final round which saw him finish on two-under-par 282.
The real final acts came with his departure, a high-five and hug with his caddie Darren Reynolds and, then, tellingly, pointing to the horseshoe of a grandstand and blowing kisses their way. All around, he had felt the love. Now, it was his time to reciprocate.
Six years ago, Lowry had walked from the same green with the Claret Jug in his possession for a party that went on much longer than the two minutes Scottie Scheffler had time-lined his celebrations.
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This time, a two-stroke penalty for the slightest movement of a ball in the second round which he hadn’t seen and had been picked up on television – “You were robbed,” came shouts from the galleries on a number of occasions over the weekend – and an illness on Saturday which had seen him seeking out the many Portakabin toilets around the links for players.
For the final round, it was more reminiscent of his glory in the 148th Open. A dropped shot on the Par 5 second seemed to kick him into life, as there followed some beautiful golf. The ball was as if on a string, his swing rhythmic, each stroke performed so that the crowds’ roars lifted from sandhills and stands to flit around the links as he birdied five of the next seven holes.
One of them was a hole-out from 183 yards – a 7-iron – on the fourth and there was too a hat-trick from the seventh to turn in 32. His only birdie on the homeward run came on the 12th but there were horseshoes and burnt edges before clattering the flagstick on the 18th with his penultimate stroke.
“It’s funny what you think about when you’re out there, but I thought of Justin Rose while I was over that chip shot and what he did at Birkdale. I thought that would have been pretty cool to finish like that, and I almost did,” said Lowry, who has two weeks off before getting back to the US for the FedEx Cup playoffs on the PGA Tour.
A good final round can put a pep back in the step and Lowry, for sure, is looking forward to those playoffs but especially at the Ryder Cup at Bethpage in September.
“Obviously, I would have liked to do better this week, there’s no doubt about that, but it is what it is. I tried my best. I gave it everything I could, and it wasn’t to be.
“For me now the next two months, obviously the playoffs are huge, but my focus and my work will be getting out of bed every morning to prepare for hopefully going to Bethpage and winning that Ryder Cup. It’s a big thing for us Europeans, and it’s a big thing for me. Major season is over now, so everything turns towards the Ryder Cup.”
