Golf

Rory McIlroy and Shane Lowry paired together at BMW PGA

Irish pair will be joined by Francesco Molinari to complete an Open champion group

Rory McIlroy and Shane Lowry will play together in the first two rounds of the BMW PGA Championship at Wentworth. Photo: Ross Kinnaird/Getty Images

Tue Sep 17 2019 - 13:32

Shane Lowry and Rory McIlroy will be alongside each other for the first two rounds of the BMW PGA Championship at Wentworth this week on the European Tour.

Defending champion Francesco Molinari is the third player in the group, rounding off a three-ball of Briths Open champions. The trio will go off at 8.50am on Thursday and 12.40pm on Friday for what is the fourth Rolex Series event of the season.

For Lowry it’s a first tournament since he narrowly missed out on making it into the top-30 of the FedEx Cup rankings for the Tour Championship on the PGA Tour last year while McIlroy comes in off the back of taking the $15m prize at East Lake before losing out in a playoff at the Omega European Masters the following week.

Since Lowry’s maiden Major victory at Portrush in July he has recorded tied-52nd and tied-48th place finishes stateside and will now concentrate on the lucrative closing stretch on the European Tour where he leads the Race to Dubai rankings.

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Pádraig Harrington will play the first two rounds alongside Mike Lorenzo-Vera and Viktor Hovland while Paul Dunne will join Alexander Björk and Joost Luiten.