There has been an outpouring of empathy for Shane Lowry after his Cognizant Classic collapse a fortnight ago but one player who will know exactly how the Offaly man feels is Tommy Fleetwood.
After Rory McIlroy completed the career grand slam, golf’s next big chase was to see if Fleetwood could finally win on the PGA Tour. Fleetwood had the heartache of near miss after near miss, each more agonising than the last, before he eventually broke through for the first time in the US at the Tour Championship last August.
Now the attention has flipped to Lowry who is without a worldwide individual win since 2022 and is yet to win a regular PGA Tour event (2015 WGC Bridgestone, 2019 Open Championship). Lowry had also come within a whisker last year – famously three-putting at the Truist Championship to allow Sepp Straka steal in. Straka had previously denied him at the Honda Classic at PGA National when a rain delay cost Lowry.
If ever a course owed Lowry it was PGA National and two weeks ago, the Clara man was three shots clear with three holes left to play. Back to back tee shots in the water led to double bogeys on 16 and 17 and the trophy going into the arms of Nico Echavarria.
Come to think of it, it was very Tommy Fleetwood before his win which is perhaps why he knows how it feels more than most. The Englishman came out to bat for his mate in his pre-Players Championship press conference earlier this week.
“There’s no doubt Shane is going to win, like probably pretty soon and it could be something really, really big. And when he does, I think like, you know, or whatever experiences have come before will be a good thing,” said Fleetwood.
“Because you learn from them all the time. But yeah winning can be difficult. But at the same time he could win a tournament and feel like maybe he shouldn’t win it because he didn’t hit the shots — I don’t know, Shane’s won a lot of tournaments, and, yeah, you look at the Ryder Cup.
“So I don’t necessarily think it’s like — I don’t think it’s like a pressure thing. I think it’s just the fact that, you know, winning a tournament maybe just needs to happen and then he’ll win a bunch maybe.”
Lowry has achieved plenty since winning the 2022 BMW PGA Championship at Wentworth including registering 17 top-10 finishes worldwide. The 38-year-old also had one of the best moments of his career when he sunk the Ryder Cup clinching putt at Bethpage Black in September. But that individual win continues to elude him.
Fleetwood was quick to offer words of encouragement to Lowry at Bay Hill last week saying it’s better to be in the position and lose than to not be there at all.
“I would talk to Shane and I would say what I would say to myself. Like you’re much better at being there and that happening than not being there at all.
“I guess you could easily look at Bay Hill last week. I would have rather been in contention on the last hole and hit it in the water and lost by one than, you know, finish 49th.
“I would have rather done that. I had the close people to me like my friends out on TOUR would give me words of encouragement and a pat on the back or whatever it would be after the weeks where I didn’t get it done.
“Like I said, there will be times that I do that again and I’ll get the same thing from my friends, and I’ll do the same to guys where it doesn’t happen and then you celebrate the times that it does.
“That’s just how it goes. But like I say, I always believe you’re better at being there and it not quite happening than not being there at all.”
Leave a comment