Sentiment won't play part in paring Shane Lowry and Rory McIlroy at Ryder Cup, Harrington insists

Rory McIlroy and Shane Lowry during the Olympic Games in Tokyo. Picture: INPHO/James Crombie

Pádraig Harrington has insisted he will only pair Shane Lowry and Rory McIlroy at next week’s Ryder Cup matches on the grounds of sense, not sentiment.

Sending out a pair of major champions, team-mates since the 2007 European Team Amateur Championships and Ireland’s representatives at this summer’s Olympics in Tokyo, would be the dream pairing for Irish golf fans when the 43rd matches against the USA get underway at Whistling Straits next Friday.

Lowry, one of Harrington’s three captain’s picks, and McIlroy have remained firm friends, practice together regularly and are enthusiastic about playing together for Europe. Harrington was also this week reminded of a picture of the pair taken 14 years ago, but he replied: “You should know me at this stage, I’m in no way nostalgic.

“If it’s the right pairing, it will be played. Nothing outside of that. I don’t go for that sort of stuff, but, you know, if it’s the right pairing it will be done and, you know, what you just said there is very much part of that.

“Do they wanna play together? Do they feel like it would be a good partnership? But I’m not putting them out together based on a picture in 2007. You’ve got to be realistic about these things, they are hard decisions, and we’ve seen mistakes like that made in the past, where guys are played from the same country and you go, ‘just because they’re from the same country doesn’t mean they have the same games, personalities’.

“So look, all I’m saying is if it does happen and there is a strong possibility that it could happen, it’s not based on the fact that there’s a picture of the lads from 2007.

“I remember I played with Paul McGinley a lot and we went from being an awesome partnership in the World Cup in 97 to literally we couldn’t play together after a few years in the World Cup because the dynamic of the group had changed.

“In 97, Paul was the clear captain of the team. A few years later, I had probably passed him on the golf course and all of a sudden there wasn’t that dynamic of who’s our captain out there.

“And we were still very friendly off the golf course. Partnerships change over time. So I will look at that partnership for sure. It is a consideration, but I ain’t going to do it just purely because it’s a nostalgic thing and it looks good on paper.”