Luck deserts Lowry but he’s not far Off'

The great thing about the game of golf is that, because it’s a sport that nearly anyone can play, you can always have a sense of how a golfer feels when they’re straining every sinew to hit a decent shot. But more than that, it was a look in the eye of Shane Lowry during last Thursday’s opening round at the Players Championship that will have resonated with golfers the world over.

The Offaly man had just dunked a second ball in the water on the devilishly difficult par-four 18th, on his way to making a quadruple bogey 8. Now, that’s something all of us amateur golfers can identify with.

Lowry’s season so far has been decent on the face of it – but when you delve slightly deeper, it becomes horribly frustrating.

In seven events, he has recorded three top finishes. Yet, it’s hard to escape the feeling that Lowry should have won at least two of those events – The Dubai Invitational in January and the Cognizant Classic last month in Florida.

In both cases Lowry had the lead in his hands but failed to turn that into victory. In Dubai, he double bogeyed the final hole after finding both the sand and the water.

His late misfortune at the Cognizant Classic, though, was harder to take. He was three shots clear with three holes to play, albeit those three holes were part of the famed ‘Bear Trap’ at the Palm Beach, where many’s a round has come a cropper.

Lowry proceeded to double bogey two of those three holes to let victory slip from his grasp. It was the sudden change in his demeanour that was most difficult to understand; he went from swinging the club so well for the first 15 holes that it was close to an exhibition to admitting that, once he found water off the tee on 16, he ‘couldn’t feel the club face the last three holes’.

“I had the tournament in my hands and I threw it away,” he continued. “What more can I say? That’s twice this year now so far. I’m getting good at it.” It might only be March, and there’s plenty of time to rectify the situation, but there has already been a few big events on the PGA Tour, with eyes now starting to turn towards Augusta and the Masters next month. And Lowry hasn’t won an event since 2022.

Augusta was the scene of arguably the greatest Irish sporting triumph of the modern era last year when Rory McIlroy scaled the summit. One of those trailing in his wake was Lowry, who again was left frustrated by what he considered a missed opportunity.

“I’m not going to stand here and talk about Rory for ten minutes,” Lowry told reporters after his third round, when he finished bogey-bogey to fall seven shots off the lead.

“I’m trying to win the tournament as well. I know that’s (McIlroy’s chances) what you all want me to talk about, but I’ve just had a s*** finish and I’ve got a chance to win the Masters, and I’m going to go hit some balls.

“It’s where you want to be. It’s what you want to do. It’s what you live for. But I want to win this tournament, so I’m pissed off.” The frustration in his answer laid bare Lowry’s competitive nature and his ambition. Ultimately, his Masters dreams failed to ignite on Sunday when he posted a final round of 81.

Now, we may still be four weeks out from the first major of the year, but it already feels as though Lowry is at a pivotal point in his season. Of all the top players in the world – and Lowry is definitely in that bracket – the Offaly man is perhaps the most natural of them all.

He has an action that many players would fork out millions to have; his hands sit softly on the club and he swings freely, enabling him to work the ball in the air with consummate ease. In many ways, he plays the game the way the purists want to see it played.

That raw talent and no little effort has helped Lowry to some incredible moments. Few sights in sport will surpass the scene when he triumphed in Portrush at the Open Championship in 2019. His achievement in winning the Irish Open as an amateur in 2009, at a wet and windy Baltray, is also something that will likely never be matched.

Lowry has also done the business at World Golf Championship level, and in the Ryder Cup, so he has ticked virtually all of the boxes available. Yet, it still feels as though there’s more there for him. Right now, he needs to get that winning feeling again.

The fact that Lowry has come up short in some high-profile events in recent years isn’t that big a deal – oftentimes, it has been the case that players trying to make the breakthrough for the first time in a while will have to endure some pain before enjoying the sweet feeling of victory again.

Padraig Harrington is a case in point. After his first win in 1996, he had an astonishing run of second place finishes before eventually getting over the line at the Sao Paulo Open in 2000. In one sequence, he had four runners up finishes in five events in 1999 and had 29 second-placed finishes in his first 11 years as a professional.

Now, though, Lowry just needs to get over the line. His last win on tour was back in 2022 at the BMW PGA Championship at Wentworth, though he did win a team event alongside McIlroy in 2024.

Lowry’s list of wins may be shorter than he would like, but they are highly impressive. His home Open, a major championship, a WGC and the DP World Tour’s signature event are among his haul of titles. But, as you watched him make that quadruple bogey eight on the 18th at Sawgrass last week, on his way to a second successive missed cut, you just got the sense that Lowry needs a break sometime soon.

Aged 38, and with a small bit of luck, there are plenty of good years left.