Shane Lowry gave the home fans plenty to cheer about in the final round of the Horizon Irish Open at the K Club, but the Offalyman would see his challenge come up shy and despite a most welcome to return to form ahead of another big couple of weeks, he admitted that it was a little bittersweet having missed out on victory.
“Yeah, yeah, it is,” he replied when asked about if posting his first top-10 since the Honda Classic back in March was welcome. “I mean, I feel like I’ve thrown a few top 20s at it and a few poor finishes in tournaments. I didn’t go out to finish top 10 this week, so you know, I don’t care whether I finished third or seventh. I went out there to win the Irish Open and I didn’t.
Wherever I finish is nice. You finish as high as you can but ultimately at the end of the day, I’m probably going to be pretty disappointed that I didn’t perform yesterday as well as I would have liked and given myself a better chance in the tournament today.”
Four birdies and an eagle were mixed with two bogeys in a final round that saw the 2019 Open Champion shoot four-under but ultimately come up two strokes short. The eagle, the highlight of the day, came at the fourth after a beautiful 4-iron from 229 yards almost went in for an albatross, but a bogey at six would see him make the turn in just one-under before a stretch of three birdies in four holes thrust him right back into the mix.
“To be honest, you know, I didn’t see a scoreboard for a long time out there,” he said, “I couldn’t believe it when -13 was leading when I got to the 16th green.”
Birdies at 16 and 18 would ultimately see him finish tied for third, but he’d given himself another good birdie look on the 17th before watching the putt slide agonisingly by, and his chance of victory gone, would receive rapturous applause on 18 but be left wondering what might have been.
“Obviously started the week getting in the Ryder Cup team,” he’d say afterwards, “and then to come in here, you know, obviously wanting to do very well and I, I show up and I play some of the best golf I’ve played all year. So that’s kind of, I’m very, very pleased myself, you know. One thing I’m very pleased with is my iron play which has been pretty iffy over the last month or two. And I felt like that was the best part of my game this week. So I’m pretty happy with that and I’m pretty happy with everything. I feel like I’ve got a nice few weeks ahead of me. And this is a great way to kind of kickstart it.”
Lowry will defend his BMW PGA Championship at Wentworth next week, but in the meantime, flies to Rome along with the Ryder Cup squad for a practice round at Marco Simone ahead of the showdown in three weeks.
“I can’t wait to meet up with the lads tomorrow,” he said. “We’re all going to Rome tomorrow. Play a practice round. We’re having dinner tomorrow night, which is nice. You know, we’re all, I’m assuming we’re all staying in the same hotel in Wentworth next week, so we’ll be hanging around and you know. It’s about creating a bond together because you go through things that week, emotions that week I never thought you would do with a group of fellas.
“So yeah, creating a good bond over next week and, and then bring it into Rome and a couple of weeks time and getting out there and fighting, fighting for every last point every last shot every last putt, you know, do it for each other and for the tour and for everyone involved.”
Leave a comment