Lowry keeping eyes on the prize

SHANE LOWRY is aiming high. The Irish Open champion announced his decision to turn professional yesterday and has already targeted a place in the elite field for the inaugural $10m Dubai World Championship in November.

Only the top 60 players on the European Tour rankings will qualify for the season-ending tournament at the Greg Norman-designed Earth Course at Jumeirah Golf Estates and the winner will take home a cheque of $3,666,660.

“That would be an unbelievable year but, if I don’t, I don’t,” said Lowry with the same mixture of ambition and level-headedness that secured victory at Baltray last Sunday. “We will just see what happens.”

He will be starting behind the black ball. Not only did Lowry not receive a cent for his win in Louth, he didn’t earn any ranking points either, and the season has already moved beyond the midway point.

New Zealand’s Mark Brown is currently 60th in the Race to Dubai having earned just over €210,000 and Lowry’s task will become even more difficult given the fact that the BMW PGA Championship takes place at Wentworth this week without him.

He will tee up as a pro for the first time at the European Open at the London Golf Club in Kent in just under a week and will plunge head first into the weekly circus that is the tour after that.

His immediate schedule was thrashed out with the Horizon Sports Management team in Dublin yesterday morning and he will make for the Celtic Manor Wales Open after Kent and then the qualifying stages of the British Open. His status as a tour winner helps him there.

“Because Shane is a tournament winner now, he basically gets into the international final qualifying at Sunningdale,” said Horizon’s Conor Ridge. “Otherwise he’d have to go to Scotland. There are more spots available at Sunningdale whereas the other one takes two days, is in Scotland and there are only three spots there for 100 players on each day. The field in Sunningdale is better though.”

After that, his plans are less certain but a spot has opened for him at the Bridgestone Invitational in Firestone, Ohio as well as the HSBC Champions event in Shanghai, China. Both are World Golf Championship events.

It was no surprise to hear Lowry admit yesterday he decided he was going to go pro as he was coming off the 18th green after Sunday’s play-off.

Missing out on the Walker Cup isn’t ideal but, as he said himself, there is “nothing else” he can achieve staying in the amateur game.

The professional arena is littered with golfers who failed that first leap. Some never make it back up the cliff face. Others, like Justin Rose, find their way to the lip after months or years of frustration. Is he prepared for all that? “Obviously it is tough on tour but a lot of guys have to worry about keeping their card and then if they do that, they are trying to get into the Race for Dubai. I have a two-and-a-half year exemption now.

“I can just go out and play golf for at least two more years and not worry about whether or not I am going to make my card or not. I have got some great advice off Graham (McDowell) and Johnny Caldwell. I have taken that on board.”

Unlike most tour rookies, he will make his debut in the full-on glare of the media. He is a cert to be placed in one of the TV groupings next week in Kent and potential sponsors have already made offers.

His performance at Co Louth would suggest that he is capable of dealing with the hype on the course and it will fall to Horizon, who also have McDowell and Ross Fisher on their books, to smooth his transition in every other department.

There were other interested parties but Horizon was the only company Lowry talked to. Ridge first offered a few words of advice on the ins and outs of turning pro last week, little knowing that the move would come about so promptly.

“To be honest, this is unchartered territory for a lot of people,” said Ridge. “I’m not going to lie and say we have managed a player who turned pro four days after winning a European Tour event in his first event.

“That’s not to say we can’t do the job. We manage an awful lot of players from the first day they turn pro. We know exactly what level they’re playing at, whether they’re a Challenge Tour player or a European Tour player.

“We know what these guys need and we already have a team in place to look after all the various elements that Shane is going to need, whether that’s commercial, sponsorship or financial or just planning his schedule.”

While some sports management companies have been known to offer signing-on fees and guarantees to players, Ridge was adamant that Horizon did not operate that way and Lowry professed to be more focused on golf than greenbacks.

“As I said to Conor from day one, all I want to do is play golf. He said he would look after everything else and I am happy with that. I’m just looking forward to getting out on the European Tour and playing some golf.

“If I make some money, I make some money. It’s all about getting the experience over the next six months for the 2010 season.”