REVIEW OF THE YEAR: PHILIP REIDtalks to Shane Lowry, whose victory in the Irish Open was up there as one of the great sporting stories of the year
THE SANCTUARY of the clubhouse, a wooden one imported in three containers from its previous home in Lilleshall Hall in England that found a new life in Esker Hills Golf Club, is very welcome.
Outside, the cold wind and rain of this December day has made redundant the initial plan to play a few holes; and there are no complaints from Shane Lowry, a rather slimmer version of the man who captured the 3 Irish Open some seven months previously.
In regurgitating the golf season of 2009, away from all of the fallout and hullabaloo about Tiger Woods’ off-course indiscretions, the story that belongs to Lowry – the son of a famed Gaelic footballer – is one that does the heart good.
He is what he is, unchanged, a nice guy who can joke it was probably a good thing he didn’t get his hands on a cheque for half-a-million euro on that day back in May when he defied history and the odds to claim the Irish Open.
“Thinking back, it’s crazy. Isn’t it? It’s just so hard to believe,” observed Lowry.
It’s worth a flashback, a return to that Sunday in May when it seemed half of Offaly – including the Taoiseach in search of good tidings – descended on Baltray.
Lowry, playing on an invite extended to the GUI, went into the final round in the hunt for one of the most precious titles on the PGA European Tour and, when the hard questions were asked, he found the answers. At the third tie hole, he finally found a way to beat English professional Robert Rock.
On that rain-soaked afternoon, the world belonged to Lowry. At the back of the 18th green, Rory McIlroy, minus any raingear, stood inside the ropes and offered encouragement as Lowry walked off the 72nd hole of regulation.
“Don’t give up, you are still in it,” McIlroy told him on his way to the recorder’s hut. It would be almost another hour, after three further treks down the 18th hole, before Lowry would find the way to claim a famous victory and, with it, set in train a move into the professional ranks. His memories of the final round? Firstly, the roar that greeted his birdie putt on the 14th to go level with Rock.
“It was just unbelievable.” Then, walking off the 17th tee having birdied the 16th to move one shot clear, there was a massive roar from the grandstand on the 18th. They must have changed the scoreboard.
One thrill after another, not even unnerved by missing a four-footer on the finishing hole which would have given him victory without the need for a play-off.
When he did get the job done, all hell broke loose.
Days like this are rare on the European Tour, and Lowry’s success – a real-life Tin Cup if you will – was up there as one of the great sporting stories of the year.
If football was always in his family’s blood, golf was what did it for young Shane Lowry.
“I always wanted to do it, even when I was 14 years old playing off 18 (handicap).
“Then I gradually started getting better every year and getting my handicap down. Then, all of a sudden, I got into the Irish Boys Squad, I was 17, 2005, I’ll never forget that.
“I wasn’t supposed to be on that panel – Rory (McIlroy) was supposed to be on it but didn’t come so I was put on as 14th man, won one of the trials, was second in the other, made the team and just kicked on from there, really.”
You wouldn’t be surprised to hear that Lowry believes in fate. Everything fell his way, not just that week but in the build-up when he defied medical opinion to have surgery on his wrist.
“The doctor wanted me to get surgery to take out the piece of fractured bone. He said it might heal itself, but it could still keep bothering me.
“I said ‘no, I’ll leave it’, cos it was around March or April when I met him. I wouldn’t have played in the Irish Open if I’d had the operation.”
Lowry’s Irish Open win and subsequent move into the professional ranks – “Since I turned pro I think my game has come on in leaps and bounds, every part of it,” he claims – has, at the age of 22, taken him into a stable of Irish golfers on tour that has never been as strong, featuring as it does three players in the world’s top-40: Pádraig Harrington (fifth), McIlroy (ninth) and Graeme McDowell (38th).
And, for sure, it was McIlroy, who turned 20 years of age back in May, who mostly delivered in 2009 with a consistent season that brought him a maiden tour win – in the Dubai Desert Classic back in February – and no fewer than 12 top-five finishes on tour, including a third-place finish in the US PGA Championship at Hazeltine.
McIlroy finished the season in second position (behind Lee Westwood) in the European Tour order of merit.
McIlroy, touted for stardom from an early age, having appeared on TV entertainment shows as a nine-year-old and winning the Irish Close as a 15-year-old, delivered on that potential as the 2009 season wound its way from one time zone to another.
By year’s end, McIlroy had played 25 tournaments in a dozen countries – stretching from Japan to the United States, China to Scotland – and won over €3.6 million in prize money.
“I’m definitely a better player now that at the start of the year,” remarked McIlroy, after just missing out on the Harry Vardon trophy in Dubai, which would have made him the youngest winner since Seve Ballesteros (who was 19 when he won in 1976).
McIlroy’s decision to take up his US Tour card for 2010 and combine playing both tours is an indication of his on-going progress.
As Harrington observed of McIlroy, “nobody out here (on tour) looks on him as a 20-year-old, they look on Rory as a great player and that’s it. He doesn’t regard himself as a kid, and nobody else does either.”
For Harrington, the 2009 season failed to live-up to the previous two years when he’d won two Claret Jugs (2007 and 2008) and a Wanamaker Trophy (2008).
“I learnt a lot from this year and will be better next season,” said Harrington, who went through the season without a win but turned his form around in August – with a runner-up finish to Tiger Woods in the Bridgestone at Akron – which prompted a run of five top-10 finishes in a row.
If Lowry’s win in the Irish Open brought a lump to many people’s throats, then so too did Tom Watson’s quest for the British Open at Turnberry in July. In the end, the claret jug evaded the American’s grasps, instead finding its way to Stewart Cink’s hands. Watson’s 59-year-old body had rebuked the years to revive glorious memories of his five British Open wins, the last of them at Birkdale in 1983, but it was to prove a step too far when he went into a four-hole play-off with Cink, who would claim a maiden major.
Angel Cabrera captured the US Masters at Augusta National, Lucas Glover won the US Open at Bethpage and Korea’s YE Yang overhauled Woods to win the US PGA at Hazeltine.