On Masters Sunday, when Rory McIlroy neared the end of his tearful, triumphant walk, it felt only right that the first player to great him with a giant bear hug was his closest friend on the PGA Tour, Shane Lowry.
Their friendship has been well documented by this point, most recently and visibly in their team victory at the 2024 Zurich Classic, their showing at the 2024 Olympic Games and a Full Swing episode highlighting the bond. But their connection stretches back some two decades; consider that when Lowry won the Irish Open as an amateur in 2009, McIlroy was there waiting for him behind the 18th green. And so it was only right that McIlroy’s 2025 Masters began with Lowry — they played the par-3 contest with Tommy Fleetwood, another close friend — and ended with him, too.
Lowry was, of course, ecstatic for his friend to win the Masters, to put an end to his major-championship drought, to finish off the career grand slam. That was all real. But it came on a particularly strange day in Lowry’s own professional career.
“Yeah, honestly it was the weirdest day ever for me,” Lowry said on Wednesday, some 10 days later, on the eve of the pair’s Zurich Classic title defence.
Lowry hadn’t just been a tournament participant, after all — he’d been right in the mix. And on Masters Saturday, Lowry had come off the course hot; back-to-back bogeys at 17 and 18 had made his final-round pursuit of the green jacket that much tougher. While Lowry is perfectly happy to be known as McIlroy’s friend, he was understandably snippy with reporters eager to chase the subject in this particular moment.
“No, I’m not going to stand here and talk about Rory for 10 minutes,” he said in a press. “I’m trying to win the tournament, as well.”
Lowry’s Sunday got off to a promising start, with par at 1 and birdie at 2. But his chances at the green jacket only plummeted from there. Bogey at 3. Double at 5. Bogey at 6. A group ahead, he watched as Justin Rose put together the round of the day, a six-under 66, adding to his inner turmoil. Lowry’s back nine was even worse: four bogeys and a double to finish off an 81, the second-highest score of the day. The result dropped him outside the top 40 and left him in a state of shock even as McIlroy endured a rollercoaster round of his own.
“I was out of [the tournament] for a long time and I was watching the leaderboard going around, then come in, and I have to deal with my own disappointments first,” Lowry said. “I actually went to the locker room for like 15 minutes just to gather my own thoughts, watched a bit of the golf, watched what he was doing out there.”
But by the time McIlroy dispatched Rose with a birdie on the first playoff hole, Lowry had left his own pursuits behind: he was single-mindedly ecstatic for his friend.
“I’m just happy for him. I know what he’s been through the last, certainly the last 10 years since the Grand Slam was on,” Lowry said. “The pressure that’s been put on him — not so much by himself but by everyone outside has been pretty tough and he’s had to deal with a lot of disappointment. So it was pretty cool to see him do that.
“I think what everyone saw on the 18th green that day was just pure relief. I was very happy for him.”
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