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Irish Times
3 days ago
- Entertainment
- Irish Times
Shane Lowry: ‘If I win another one, I'll celebrate twice as much'
The gable end of a house on Causeway Street in Portrush delivers a reminder of Shane Lowry's Open triumph in 2019 . The fantastic mural not only depicts Lowry with the Claret Jug in hand, but how Ireland, whether North or South, unites behind its sportspeople. Lingering memories from six years ago recall Lowry stretching away from the field towards the end of round three. He was in an unassailable position. The subsequent epic, week-long celebrations are another key reference point; the new Open champion showed the sporting world how to party and it fuelled a misconception, a tired cliche of the bearded, drinking Irishman. 'I have always been conscious of that, but I have also always enjoyed myself,' Lowry says. 'I work my nuts off. You can't play at this level without doing that. If I win another one, I'll celebrate twice as good. It's so hard out here, so hard to win big tournaments, that when you do, you need to enjoy them. 'Players came to me afterwards ... I remember Martin Kaymer's caddie telling me: 'Martin regrets not doing what you did because when he was winning majors, world number one, he took it for granted a little bit.' You need to enjoy the moments.' READ MORE A mural of Shane Lowry, the last winner at Portrush, on the side of a house on Causeway Street in Portrush, Northern Ireland. Photograph:The Open's return to Northern Ireland turns thoughts back towards what Lowry achieved. The outpouring of emotion was due in part to what he encountered before the last round. He led by four with 18 holes to play – the same advantage he had at Oakmont's 2016 US Open, only to stumble painfully in Pennsylvania. 'It is what you work for and everything you dream of, but it was one of the toughest 24 hours of my life, in sporting terms,' says Lowry. 'You don't sleep. People are definitely tense around you. It is a tough place. The consequences of failure were so huge. If I didn't win that day, I still wouldn't be over it. How much it meant, where it was, all that stuff. 'Oakmont helped me, 100 per cent. I went out in the final round there not to lose the tournament. At Portrush, I went out to win. I said to Neil [Manchip, Lowry's coach] that Sunday morning: 'If I can make five birdies today, nobody can beat me.' Even if I made five bogeys as well and shot level, nobody was beating me in that weather. That was the mindset. At Oakmont, I went out to make pars and let it all slip.' Shane Lowry celebrates with caddie Bo Martin on the 18th hole during the final round of the 148th Open Championship on the Dunluce Links at Royal Portrush Golf Club, July 2019. Photograph:Lowry felt at home on the Dunluce Links, where he was roared on towards victory by a mix of total strangers and those closest to him. 'Until I played my tee shot on the 17th on Sunday, I didn't allow myself to think, 'This is it.' I hit that one and realised I could kick it in from there, I had a six-shot lead. 'I was looking out for people. I saw a lot of friends at the top of the 18th grandstand. Turning the dog-leg corner at the last, I could see my daughter ... she was only two-and-a-half at the time and had this bright yellow jacket on. I could see that right behind the flag, in the tunnel at the back of the 18th green. A wave of emotion came over me. I could have cried. I remember my caddie saying to me something like: 'Man up, you still have a shot to hit.' [ Open 2025: The five Irish players who will tee it up at Royal Portrush Opens in new window ] 'At the back of the 18th, most of the people who have been hugely influential in my career were there. My parents were there, my coach, Graeme McDowell, Pádraig Harrington. It was incredible.' Lowry used to regularly watch footage of his Open glory. He does less of that now. 'I would give anything to be able to stand there and experience the 18th hole again,' he says. 'It all happened so quickly that it really is like a blur. The only way you can place yourself there is by looking at videos. It's amazing to have all the YouTube videos, for my kids and hopefully grandkids when everyone gets older.' Shane Lowry with the Claret Jug, the trophy awarded to the champion golfer of the year, after winning the British Open golf Championships at Royal Portrush in July 2019. Photograph: Glyn Kirk/AFP via Getty Images The one exception was that round three run. While en route to a 63, Lowry played the back nine in 30. Portrush had been battered into submission as he led the field a merry dance. 'People talk about being in the zone. Those last four or five holes, that is the one time in my career where I felt that and thought I knew what it was. 'I felt like I was going to birdie every hole. If I had another nine holes to play, I felt like I would birdie all of them as well. That is where I won the tournament.' Lowry's victory lap was distorted by the arrival of a pandemic. At the 2020 Players Championship, golf followed the global trend of shutdown. 'A lot of people were in far worse situations than me, but I felt a little hard done by where it was all a bit weird going to the biggest events as the Open champion,' Lowry says. 'I didn't get the full experience. 'My game also suffered during Covid. Rory [McIlroy] was the same. We played a lot, played really well in games against each other, then we would come on tour and the lack of crowds and energy affected us. I really hated that. Shane Lowry reacts to a shot on the 18th hole during the first round of the Travelers Championship 2025 at TPC River Highlands in Cromwell, Connecticut. Photograph:'I remember going home from Sawgrass and being a little lost for a few weeks. I had spent close to 20 years with a purpose, with something to work towards, then one day it was taken away. I realised how lucky we have it when things got back to normal.' Lowry has joked that McIlroy's grand slam triumph takes focus off him for the Portrush return. Yet it is a truism that one so talented should really have more than one major to their name. 'It definitely helps that I have one because if I didn't by now, it would be doing my head in,' he says. 'I have to stress this is not me lacking drive, but if I was to pack it in today I would be pretty happy with what I have. That doesn't at all mean I don't want more.' – Guardian
The Guardian
3 days ago
- Entertainment
- The Guardian
Shane Lowry: ‘If I win another Open, I'll celebrate twice as much'
The gable end of a house on Causeway Street in Portrush delivers a reminder of Shane Lowry's Open triumph in 2019. The fantastic mural not only depicts Lowry with the Claret Jug in hand, but how Ireland, whether north or south, unites behind its sportspeople. Lingering memories from six years ago recall Lowry stretching away from the field towards the end of round three. He was in an unassailable position. The subsequent epic, week-long celebrations are another key reference point; the new Open champion showed the sporting world how to party and it fuelled a misconception, a tired cliche of the bearded, drinking Irishman. 'I have always been conscious of that, but I have also always enjoyed myself,' Lowry says. 'I work my nuts off. You can't play at this level without doing that. If I win another one, I'll celebrate twice as good. It's so hard out here, so hard to win big tournaments that when you do, you need to enjoy them. 'Players came to me afterwards… I remember Martin Kaymer's caddie telling me: 'Martin regrets not doing what you did because when he was winning majors, world No 1, he took it for granted a little bit.' You need to enjoy the moments.' The Open's return to Northern Ireland turns thoughts back towards what Lowry achieved. The outpouring of emotion was due in part to what he encountered before the last round. He led by four with 18 holes to play, the same advantage he had at Oakmont's 2016 US Open, only to stumble painfully in Pennsylvania. 'It is what you work for and everything you dream of, but it was one of the toughest 24 hours of my life, in sporting terms,' says Lowry. 'You don't sleep. People are definitely tense around you. It is a tough place. The consequences of failure were so huge. If I didn't win that day, I still wouldn't be over it. How much it meant, where it was, all that stuff. 'Oakmont helped me, 100%. I went out in the final round there not to lose the tournament. At Portrush, I went out to win. I said to Neil [Manchip, Lowry's coach] that Sunday morning: 'If I can make five birdies today, nobody can beat me.' Even if I made five bogeys as well and shot level, nobody was beating me in that weather. That was the mindset. At Oakmont, I went out to make pars and let it all slip.' Lowry felt at home on the Dunluce Links and he was roared on towards victory by a mix of total strangers and those closest to him. 'Until I played my tee shot on the 17th on Sunday, I didn't allow myself to think, 'This is it.' I hit that one and realised I could kick it in from there, I had a six-shot lead. 'I was looking out for people. I saw a lot of friends at the top of the 18th grandstand. Turning the dog-leg corner at the last, I could see my daughter… she was only two-and-a-half at the time and had this bright yellow jacket on. I could see that right behind the flag, in the tunnel at the back of the 18th green. A wave of emotion came over me. I could have cried. 'I remember my caddie saying to me something like: 'Man up, you still have a shot to hit.' At the back of the 18th, most of the people who have been hugely influential in my career were there. My parents were there, my coach, Graeme McDowell, Pádraig Harrington. It was incredible.' Lowry used to regularly watch footage of his Open glory. He does less of that now. 'I would give anything to be able to stand there and experience the 18th hole again,' he says. 'It all happened so quickly that it really is like a blur. The only way you can place yourself there is by looking at videos. It's amazing to have all the YouTube videos, for my kids and hopefully grandkids when everyone gets older.' The one exception was that round three run. While en route to a 63, Lowry played the back nine in 30. Portrush had been battered into submission as he led the field a merry dance. 'People talk about being in the zone. Those last four or five holes, that is the one time in my career where I felt that and thought I knew what it was. Sign up to The Recap The best of our sports journalism from the past seven days and a heads-up on the weekend's action after newsletter promotion 'I felt like I was going to birdie every hole. If I had another nine holes to play, I felt like I would birdie all of them as well. That is where I won the tournament.' Lowry's victory lap was distorted by the arrival of a pandemic. At the 2020 Players Championship, golf followed the global trend of shutdown. 'A lot of people were in far worse situations than me, but I felt a little hard done by where it was all a bit weird going to the biggest events as the Open champion,' Lowry says. 'I didn't get the full experience. 'My game also suffered during Covid. Rory [McIlroy] was the same. We played a lot, played really well in games against each other, then we would come on tour and the lack of crowds and energy affected us. I really hated that. 'I remember going home from Sawgrass and being a little lost for a few weeks. I had spent close to 20 years with a purpose, with something to work towards, then one day it was taken away. I realised how lucky we have it when things got back to normal.' Lowry has joked that McIlroy's grand slam triumph takes focus off him for the Portrush return. Yet it is a truism that one so talented should really have more than one major to their name. 'It definitely helps that I have one because if I didn't by now, it would be doing my head in,' he says. 'I have to stress this is not me lacking drive, but if I was to pack it in today I would be pretty happy with what I have. That doesn't at all mean I don't want more.'
Scotsman
04-07-2025
- Sport
- Scotsman
An amicable future for golf? BMW International Open offers a glimpse with rarity
Presence of LIV Golf players in field in Munich has been boost for German fans Sign up to our Golf newsletter – Regular news stories and round-ups from around Scotland direct to your inbox Sign up Thank you for signing up! Did you know with a Digital Subscription to The Scotsman, you can get unlimited access to the website including our premium content, as well as benefiting from fewer ads, loyalty rewards and much more. Learn More Sorry, there seem to be some issues. Please try again later. Submitting... Scan the line up for this week's BMW International Open in Munich and you'll see a few names that are maybe not so familiar with DP World Tour followers any more. Two-time major winner and home favourite Martin Kaymer, for instance, is in the field at Golfclub Munchen Eichenreid. So, too, is former Masters champion and the all-time record Ryder Cup points-scorer, Sergio Garcia. Advertisement Hide Ad Advertisement Hide Ad Oh, and Patrick Reed, another Green Jacket winner and the man dubbed 'Captain America' after his passion for the Ryder Cup was ignited at Gleneagles in 2014, as well. Two-time major winner Martin Kaymer, who now plays on the LIV Golf League, talks with fellow German Marcel Siem on day two of the BMW International Open at Golfclub Munchen Eichenried |The trio, of course, are all now LIV Golf League players - Garcia captains Fireballs, Kaymer leads Cleeks and Reed represents 4Aces - on the Saudi-backed breakaway league that is now into its fourth season. Which might well leave some people asking 'why they are playing on the DP World Tour?'. Well, unlike the PGA Tour, LIV Golf players are not automatically banned from teeing up on what used to be known simply as the European Tour. Tyrrell Hatton is currently sitting in an automatic spot for the Ryder Cup in September after producing some big DP World Tour performances towards the end of last year and the beginning of this one, having been eligible to do so as his appeal against fines and sanctions imposed by the Wentworth-based circuit for playing in LIV Golf events is pending. Advertisement Hide Ad Advertisement Hide Ad Garcia, meanwhile, paid his fines to make himself eligible again for the Ryder Cup, with any player required to be a DP World Tour member to be considered for the transatlantic tussle, which Garcia has played in no less than ten times. For all his experience and fire, it remains doubtful that the 45-year-old will be on Luke Donald's team for a trophy defence on Long Island, but his presence along with both Kaymer and Reed in Bavaria this week is certainly worth looking into a bit more closely. BMW, of course, is one of the DP World Tour's biggest sponsors, not to mention golf in general. The car giant also sponsors events on the PGA Tour and LPGA Tour. In addition, it is one of the Official Partners of the Ryder Cup as well. Advertisement Hide Ad Advertisement Hide Ad It's no surprise that they want to see the strongest field possible for the BMW International Open and it's never been any secret that Marco Kaussler, the tournament director, has been a close friend of Garcia for a long number of years. The same probably goes for Kaymer, who would always jump at a chance to play in his national Open. As for Reed, he made a lot of friends - MacIntyre was one of them - when he came over from the US to play as much as he could on the DP World Tour before LIV Golf turned his head and curtailed that a bit. Do the trio add something to this week's tournament? Of course they do. Just as Lee Westwood did when he teed up on Tuesday in The Open Final Qualifying at Dundonald Links and thrilled a large crowd following his group by winning the shoot-out on the Ayrshire coast. Sergio Garcia, who captains Fireballs on the LIV Golf League, has been playing on the DP World Tour in Germany this week |Judging by the reaction on social media to that success, the damage has been done as far as Westwood and the other defectors to LIV Golf in the eyes of some people and that, of course, is perhaps not surprising. The DP World Tour, after all, made the likes of Westwood, Garcia, Kaymer, Ian Poulter etc and not the other way around. Advertisement Hide Ad Advertisement Hide Ad With all due respect, they won't be missed in an event like next week's $9 million Genesis Scottish Open. Not when the field at The Renaissance Club is set to boast the top five players in the Official World Golf Ranking and eight out of the top ten. And not when defending champion Bob MacIntyre is set to fly the Saltire along with three other Scots to win on the DP World Tour within the past 12 months in Ewen Ferguson, Calum Hill and, most recently, Connor Syme. There can be no denying, though, that the German fans will have enjoyed seeing Kaymer in particular in action on home soil this week and both Garcia and Reed, too, because major winners will always be star attractions and rightly so. Lucas Glover, a former US Open champion, has said he doesn't want to see LIV Golf players back on the PGA Tour and that topic clearly remains an issue as talks between the PGA Tour, DP World Tour and Saudi Arabia's Public Investment Fund have gone very quiet indeed over the past couple of months. LIV Golf player Patrick Reed was in the same group as Scotland's Ewen Ferguson, the defending champion, in the first two rounds of the BMW International Open |It could be the case, therefore, that US fans have to make do with the top PGA Tour players and LIV Golf players only getting the chance to go head-to-head in the majors, as has been the case over the past three years and now in this one as well. Advertisement Hide Ad Advertisement Hide Ad But, in Europe and the Middle East, a platform is clearly there to perhaps see a bit more again of players who were stars on the DP World Tour and for Europe in the Ryder Cup talking on the new stars on this side of the Atlantic. Yes, it was their decision to go to LIV Golf and things turned a bit nasty, with some bridges probably unrepairable. However, maybe this week in Munich and those four Open Final Qualifiers - Lucas Herbert and Dean Burmester were among other LIV Golf players to progress to Royal Portrush - was a glimpse of a more amicable future for the game outside the US.
Yahoo
25-06-2025
- Sport
- Yahoo
Richard Bland chooses LIV over chance to defend title at US Senior Open
COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. (AP) — Richard Bland will not defend his title this week at the U.S. Senior Open, choosing instead to play at LIV Golf's stop in Dallas while the seniors tee it up at the Broadmoor in Colorado Springs. The 52-year-old defending champ said on social media that he was committed to playing LIV's 14-event schedule with a goal of finishing among the top 24 to guarantee his spot on the Cleeks team captained by Martin Kaymer. Advertisement Action starts Thursday at the Broadmoor, which is hosting its ninth USGA championship. Among them: Jack Nicklaus' victory in the 1959 U.S. Amateur and Annika Sorenstam's 1995 win in the U.S. Women's Open. Bland, a longtime fixture on the European (now DP World) Tour, won the British Masters in 2021 at age 48 to become that tour's oldest first-time winner. Also that year, he shared the lead at the U.S. Open at Torrey Pines after two rounds before finishing 50th. Bland was denied entry into the 2023 Senior British Open because of outstanding fines he owed to the European Tour after his move to LIV. But his win at the Senior PGA Championship in 2024 qualified him for the Senior U.S. Open later last summer, and he beat Hiroyuki Fujita in a playoff at Newport Country Club for the title. Without Bland in the mix, the betting favorites this week are Stewart Cink, Miguel Angel Jimenez and Steven Alker. Jimenez beat Alker in a playoff at last week's senior tour stop. Advertisement Also in the field are two-time Senior U.S. Open champion Bernhard Langer and Angel Cabrera, who has already won two majors — the Tradition and Senior PGA — this year. David Toms won the last Senior Open held at the Broadmoor, back in 2018. ___ The Associated Press
Washington Post
25-06-2025
- Sport
- Washington Post
Richard Bland chooses LIV over chance to defend title at US Senior Open
COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. — Richard Bland will not defend his title this week at the U.S. Senior Open, choosing instead to play at LIV Golf's stop in Dallas while the seniors tee it up at the Broadmoor in Colorado Springs. The 52-year-old defending champ said on social media that he was committed to playing LIV's 14-event schedule with a goal of finishing among the top 24 to guarantee his spot on the Cleeks team captained by Martin Kaymer.
