The 148th edition of the British Open Golf Championship concluded last Sunday at the Royal Portrush Golf Club in Northern Ireland. While the tournament ended up being somewhat of a runaway for the eventual champion, it was a most fascinating display of golf on a great links course with all variations of weather present during the course of four days.
It was quite surprising to see Gary Woodland win the United States Open at Pebble Beach last month while Shane Lowry made it two in a row with his victory in the Open Championship at Portrush. Lowry has historically been one of those rock-solid golfers in the game’s second tier, and while he’s had his moments in the sun, they have been few and far between. An Irishman from some 150 miles south of Portrush, Lowry’s win on his native soil will forever be a most popular one in Ireland.
Lowry is an active member of both the American PGA Tour and the European Tour. He is the son of a well-known Irish footballer and started playing golf as a youngster at the Esker Hills Golf Club in Clara. He was a very competitive amateur golfer but he also was a college student attending the Athlone Institute of Technology. Shane had a successful amateur career while in college, winning the 2007 Irish Amateur Close, the 2008 West of Ireland, the 2008 North of Ireland, and the Mullingar Scratch Cup, also in 2008.
Shane’s successes in 2008 got him an invite into the Irish Open in 2009, a long-running tournament on the European Tour. While most amateurs would be overjoyed with the invite and hope to make the cut, Lowry stunned the golfing world by shooting a second-round 62 to make it into the weekend. Instead of folding, Lowry ended up tied atop the leader board Sunday afternoon and then defeated tour regular Robert Rock in a sudden-death playoff. The next day Lowry turned professional.
His win in the Irish Open got him exempt status on the European Tour, but his next win wouldn’t occur until three years later when he beat Ross Fisher by one stroke to win the Portugal Masters. Three years later, Lowry was ranked in the world top 50 and got into the World Golf Championship Bridgestone Championship at Firestone. Once again he surprised the rest of the field, beating Bubba Watson by two strokes. It took more than another three years when earlier this year Shane won the European Tour event in Abu Dhabi in January.
There was no reason to expect anything special for Lowry this past weekend. While others were expecting great things from Rory McIlory, Graeme McDowell, Darren Clarke and two-time Open champion Padraig Harrington, Lowry was flying under the radar. Back-to-back 67s Thursday and Friday put him tied atop the leader board with American J.B. Holmes. A brilliant 63 Saturday was not only jaw-dropping, but gave Lowry a four-stroke lead over Englishman Tommy Fleetwood. Fleetwood shot 66 in a major and lost ground.
No one was really sure how Lowry would handle the pressure Sunday. The weather would prove to be a formidable foe as would the memory of Lowry’s final-round collapse at the 2016 U.S. Open at Oakmont. A very shaky bogey on the opening hole seemed to be a bad portend of things to come. Yet Lowry righted the ship under brutal conditions of rain and 30 mph winds to stay safely ahead of Fleetwood. His front nine of three bogeys and three birdies kept him ahead of the pack, and when he birdied 15 following Fleetwood’s double-bogey on the 14th, the final three holes were a great walk in the park for the Irishman playing on Irish soil. In fact, I would contend that Lowry’s 72 on Sunday was perhaps a better golf performance than his 63 the previous day. It was a very memorable sporting moment in a land that has had few memorable sporting moments during the past 50 years.
Royal Portrush was the other winner at last week’s Open. True, the first hole with out-of-bounds left and right is kind of a funky opening hole, but the course seems to be a beautiful and rigorous test of links golf. The Open will definitely return to Portrush within the next decade and most impressive was the gallery crowd of 237,000 for the week.
It also a very good week for the mainstays of the European Tour. Tommy Fleetwood finished solo second and has shown himself to be capable of winning a major championship. An aging Lee Westwood, two years shy of the senior tour, finished in fourth place alongside Brooks Koepka. Robert MacIntyre of Scotland, Tyrell Hatton of England and former Masters champion Danny Willet all tied for sixth place alongside American Rickie Fowler. Defending champion Francesco Molinari had a 66 Sunday and finished in 11th place. Molinari played early and got in his round before the rains. Yes, it was a very good week for the European Tour.
Shane Lowry’s victory Sunday not only marked the end of the major championship calendar year, but it was the last major of this decade. Remarkably, 25 of the 40 major championships of this decade were won by first-time major winners. Rory won four majors, Brooks took home four as well, Jordan Spieth has three grand slam titles, but the vast majority of major titlists were newbies.
Finally, I was struck by Shane Lowry’s ability to celebrate what is obviously the greatest moment of his golfing life. He led singalongs at the local pub, had close to 400 patrons drink with him out of the Claret Jug, and for all we know, he’s still celebrating his Open title with the members at Esker Hills. Compare that to 18 years ago when world No. 1 David Duval won the British Open and then got depressed on the flight home, wondering why he didn’t feel better about winning his first, and only, major. Shane Lowry definitely had no such moments of darkness or doubt. While Lowry may never again win a major championship, just as Gary Woodland probably won’t either, he still has one more than Rickie Fowler, Jon Rahm, Paul Casey, Patrick Cantlay, Bryson DeChambeau and a host of others.
The 148th Open Championship is now in the record books. Shane Lowry’s big win will forever be remembered in his home country and Royal Portrush has punched its ticket to return to the Open rota in the near future. For Lowry, Portrush and Ireland, it was a very good week.
