While the Tour Championship takes centre stage in the FedEx Cup Playoffs, Shane Lowry will be teeing it up at Albatross Golf Resort in Prague in the D+D Real Czech Masters as he looks to play his way into form ahead of September’s Ryder Cup.
Lowry missed out on this year’s playoffs after a disappointing finish at the regular season-ending Wyndham Championship which has cast a shadow of doubt over his aspirations of making a second consecutive Ryder Cup appearance for Europe in Marco Simone, Rome.
The Offaly man posted just one top-10 on the PGA Tour and finds himself tenth on the European Points List and eighth on the World Points List with the top-3 qualifying from each list.
Rory McIlroy and Jon Rahm are already confirmed for Luke Donald’s side.
Lowry will join compatriot Pádraig Harrington in Prague at the end of the month with the latter looking to boost his unlikely Ryder Cup bid having captained Europe two years ago in Whistling Straits.
Harrington has been a regular contender on the Champions Tour but feels he is playing well enough to win on the main tours again and will prioritise the DP World Tour for the autumn as he bids for a seventh European appearance and first since 2010 in Celtic Manor.
“I’ve been playing well, physically capable of competing with the young guys,” said Harrington who made the cut in all three of his major championship appearances this year.
“I go back and play a regular event, and it’s like because it’s an individual one-off event, it’s standing out too much when I’m there. Like there’s — years ago, like I joined the PGA Tour back in 2005 because I wanted to win majors and I was going to major tournaments prior to that and they were all individual stand-out events, and you’re distracted when you’re doing that. You need to play tournaments in a flow.
“So I’m going to play — I think I’m good enough to win on tour, on the regular tour, but I have to get back to in the flow of regular tour events. I can’t just turn up and play one and say hello to my friends and do all that sort of stuff. I have to play three or four of them in a row to get the feel of them and the flow.”
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