Momentum with Shane Lowry following another strong finish

Although he has remained at 21st in the world rankings, despite following a tied-13th finish in the Farmers Insurance Open with a tied-sixth place finish in the Phoenix Open, Shane Lowry has clear momentum heading into this week’s AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am tournament where he completes his initial three-week foray on the PGA Tour.

Lowry, in fact, is now just .002 of a point behind Louis Oosthuizen as he eyes a return to the top-20 in the world rankings.

The 28-year-old Offalyman – who won €181,773 ($203,450) in prizemoney for his performance in Phoenix – has his sights set on a number of goals for this season, among them the Olympic Games, nailing down a Ryder Cup place and making the Tour Championship, the finale to the FedEx Cup.

However, his philosophy heading to this week’s Pebble Beach Pro-Am, where he will again partner businessman Dermot Desmond in the team element of the tournament, is to continue to treat each week on its own merit rather than focus on the main goals.

Smaller goals

As he put it, “I’ve got a lot of smaller goals I’d just like to achieve; be ready for every week that I play, and every tournament I play is a big tournament.”

For Lowry, and the stage he is at in his career, every tournament is indeed a big tournament. And he has carefully mapped out a schedule that will see him focus primarily on the PGA Tour in the United States, with his first tournament in Europe being the Irish Open at The K Club in May.

By then, Lowry will have played in two WGCs – the Cadillac at Doral and the Matchplay in Texas – as well as the US Masters, all of which also count towards Ryder Cup qualifying points.

Next up for him is the $7 million Pebble Beach Pro-Am – played on the famed links as well as at Spyglass Hill and Monterrey Peninsula – where two other Irish players are also competing.

Pádraig Harrington and Paul Dunne, who is playing on a sponsor’s exemption for a third straight week, will be aiming to bounce back from missed cuts in Phoenix.

Harrington is playing with regular partner, JP McManus, in the team and Dunne will have former R and A chief Peter Dawson as his playing partner.

Harrington is in the second week of a four-week stretch up to his defence of the Honda Classic, whilst Dunne – who impressed in a tied-13th finish in the Farmers Insurance two weeks ago – will move on to Asia for upcoming European Tour co-sanctioned events.

The in-form Brandt Snedeker is the defending champion at Pebble Beach, where six of the world’s top-10 compete.

Rory McIlroy, though, has bypassed the event and will resume tournament play at next week’s Northern Trust Open at Riviera in Los Angeles.

McIlroy, the world number two, returned to his home in Florida on Sunday night after a tied-sixth finish in the Dubai Desert Classic with the intention of having “a week to work on my game” ahead of a busy stretch that will see the Northern Irishman play five tournaments in a six-week stretch.

“It’s a busy run of golf coming up but I am looking forward to it.”

Although he didn’t manage a win in either of his two appearances on the European Tour’s Desert Swing, in Abu Dhabi and Dubai, McIlroy departed the UAE claiming he had “a good understanding” of what he needed to work on.

Good work

“It’s been a real helpful exercise in that way . . . I still feel like there’s a lot to work on going into the next few weeks and hopefully I can put some good work in next week and feel sharp going into Riviera.”

Three Irish players – Peter Lawrie, Kevin Phelan and Ruaidhrí McGee – are in action this week in the Tshwane Open, a co-sanctioned event on the European Tour and the Sunshine Tour in South Africa.

Niall Turner, meanwhile, will seek to continue his recent good form at the Bangladesh Open on the Asian Tour and Cormac Sharvin – who yesterday tied-up in a new sponsorship deal with Flogas – has been given an invite into this week’s Victorian PGA Championship on the Australasian Tour.