‘It all clicked this week’: Shane Lowry’s Irish Open win a reminder of his golfing genius

The stars have a habit of aligning for Shane Lowry when it really matters. And if demons have been swirling around in his head for much of the season, he slew them unequivocally – his golf reaching otherworldly heights – to capture the Amgen Irish Open at Trump International in record-breaking fashion and add another famous chapter to a storied career.This was a true statement of Shane Lowry being Shane Lowry, the best version of himself, in closing with a stunning 63 for a total of 23-under-par 257, which gave him an 11-shot winning margin over runners-up Patrick Reed and Joaquin Niemann.What did this do for Lowry? It gave him a pay-day for €878,529. It moved him to 40th on the official world rankings, which will earn him another Masters invite come the end of the year. It jumped him to 17th on the Race to Dubai rankings. It moved him to the top of the Ryder Cup rankings for next year’s defence against the USA at Adare Manor.And yet more valuable that any of those statistics or monetary gain, the win and the manner of it propelled Lowry – who won the Irish Open in 2009 as an amateur, who claimed the Claret Jug in 2019 at Royal Portrush, and who retained the Ryder Cup for Europe in heroic fashion at Bethpage – to a new awareness of what his golfing genius can attain.READ MOREThere were times this year when Lowry doubted many things about himself. His game. His mental strength. He changed caddies, switching back to his old bagman Dermot Byrne after the US Open in June. He got his team together – coach Neil Manchip, fitness coach Robbie Cannon – for a recalibration week in Florida after missing out on the final stages of the FedEx Cup playoffs and all of that resulted in a re-energised Lowry arriving to Co Clare and putting it all into practice.“It all clicked this week. I felt mentally I was in an amazing place this week, as well. I felt like I went out and went after it. I felt like I played somewhat carefree-golf, when I wasn’t worried about making mistakes. I wasn’t worried about the outcome of anything,” said Lowry. And those demons, which had stemmed from losing late leads in the closing rounds of the Dubai Invitational and the Cognizant, and also of not contending in the final round of the Masters, most notably.“Dubai was difficult. Cognizant was pretty hard. But the Sunday of the Masters was especially difficult for me this year, and I feel like after that, a lot of wind went out of my sails. I feel like I was playing great golf, and even after that I felt like I was playing decent and finishing 25th, 30th, 40th, just doing nothing every week and it was very, very tough,” he said.Shane Lowry celebrates with caddie Dermot Byrne on the 18th green. Photograph: Dan Clohessy/Inpho “And in that stretch, I played like 11 out of 13 weeks or something. So it was quite hard. And then the more you kind of keep trying to play through it, the harder it can get sometimes. So, to take a few weeks off and kind of reset, was nice.“What do you do? First of all, I went and looked at my stats. They were pretty good. Not bad. Not amazing but not horrendous. So that kind of gives you a glimmer of hope. So, right, I need to keep trying to put myself in position, and that’s probably the only way I’m going to get through it. Put yourself in tough positions and try and fight through it. Believe in what you’re doing with your team. Believe in what you’re doing with the people around you. I feel like I’ve done that.“And today was a big day for me. If I didn’t win today, I don’t even want to think what I would have been like for the next while. It would have been hard.”And how.In an Irish Open unlike any other, where ultimately golf was the winner, Lowry was the poster boy.And while Lowry was the star of the show in Doonbeg, Leona Maguire also had much to celebrate as part of the Europe team which defeated the United States in the Solheim Cup by 15-13 in the match at Bernardus in the Netherlands.[ Leona Maguire loses singles match but Europe win back Solheim CupOpens in new window ]Playing in her fourth Solheim Cup appearance, Maguire – who lost her singles to Lauren Coughlin by 2&1 on Sunday – emerged with two points from her four matches and again played an important role.“My main goal this week was if everyone can leave Sunday knowing that we’ve all done our best, but you’re going to have lifelong friendship and memories from this event, and I think we succeeded. I think we surpassed all of that, so I’m really proud of the girls,” said Europe captain Anna Nordqvist.