Shane Lowry getting the major vibe off Sawgrass

PONTE VEDRA BEACH, FLORIDA - MARCH 08: Shane Lowry of Ireland plays a shot from a bunker during a practice round prior to THE PLAYERS Championship on the Stadium Course at TPC Sawgrass on March 08, 2022 in Ponte Vedra Beach, Florida. (Photo by Sam Greenwood/Getty Images)

Weather permitting, Shane Lowry will tee off Thursday morning with something he’s never really experienced before at the Players Championship – positive memories of the TPC Sawgrass Stadium Course.

Lowry pocketed a little confidence in last year’s Players with his first career top-10 finish in the PGA Tour’s flagship event. He was in the mix to potentially win on Sunday before settling for a solo eighth-place finish. He’s now made three cuts and missed three in his six prior starts at Sawgrass.

“I like the course, I like how it plays, the way it’s set up,” Lowry said. “I like being here. It’s a huge event. It really feels like a major when you come here.” 

The Players feels especially major this year with a record $20 million prize fund, of which the winner will pocket $3.6M (€3.26M). The field arrived Monday to find a course in pristine condition – though that will change dramatically with a bleak forecast that calls for up to 3- to 5-inches of rain from Thursday to Saturday as a quasi-stationary front settles over north Florida. Just getting the tournament completed by Sunday will be a significant challenge.

The Players field, always the strongest in golf, includes 46 of the top 50 ranked players in the world scheduled to tee it up. Bryson DeChambeau and Harris English are sidelined with ongoing injuries while Kevin Na withdrew after the birth of his third child last week. Phil Mickelson is on indefinite leave after his criticism of the PGA Tour and involvement in trying to establish a Saudi-backed rival league cost him a slew of sponsors and may have drawn disciplinary action from the tour.

Lowry is scheduled to start in the morning off the 10th tee with Lucas Glover and Matthew Wolff. Both Rory McIlroy and Seamus Power are in the first round’s afternoon wave.

“The weather forecast looks like it's going to be the same for everyone, just looks like rain pretty much all day those two days,” McIlroy said. “Just try to handle the conditions as best as we can and try to shoot a couple of solid scores and get through to the weekend and go from there.” 

Lowry hasn’t dwelled on the particulars of his performance last year, only that he had an opportunity. A three-putt bogey on the infamous par-3 17th and a closing birdie on the treacherous 18th were about all the specifics he could recall.

“I remember I had a good run at it and then had a bit of a shitty finish,” he said. “I birdied the last and finished about eighth or something.” 

Lowry had played the first 10 holes in 4-under par to put himself firmly into contention on a volatile back-nine that historically has yielded a wide range of scoring from dramatic charges to epic collapses.

He failed to capitalise on chances at 11, 12 and 13 yet still walked to the 15th tee at 9-under par and hoping to improve on the clubhouse mark of 10-under to give the leaders behind him a tougher mark to shoot at.

“You watch this tournament every year, and somebody plays the last four holes in 4-under or something,” Lowry said last year. “I said to (caddie) Beau (Martin) walking down 15, ‘Why can't that be me? Let's just go for it.’”

Unfortunately, Lowry missed a birdie chance on 15 and got out of position off the tee on the par-5 16th and had to settle for a desultory par. The three-putt at 17 scuttled any last hope, but his birdie from out of the pine straw on the last give him that first top-10 finish and started a run of career-best finishes on big stages like the Masters and PGA Championship.

Now he shows up on the heels of another missed chance to close out a win at the Honda Classic, where he led with a few holes to play but got clipped by Sepp Straka at the finish. He also slipped from contention with a Sunday 77 in Abu Dhabi in January.

Considering his recent form, does Lowry feel like a win is in his near future?

“You always feel ready to win because you practice every day and go about your business and hopefully you do well. You can’t really tell,” he said. “I’ve been playing good golf at the minute, and I have been for awhile pretty consistent.

“I had a good chance to win at the Honda and wasn’t fortunate enough to do that. That was disappointing. I feel like I’ve taken a lot from that and you come to an event two week later you’re obviously feeling like you can do something. I feel like my game’s in decent shape.” 

Like McIlroy, Lowry believes his game is ramping up nicely as he heads into the meat of the season with prominent events coming at regular monthly intervals through the spring and summer. The Players is the first of three consecutive starts for Lowry before he takes a week off to go for a preview visit at Augusta the week ahead of the Masters, where he posted a career-best T21 last year.

“You always have one eye kind of looking towards Augusta, but I’ve obviously got a nice run of events going in there,” he said. “I’m playing theses three weeks. I’d like to continue my good form and bring it into Augusta with some good golf.

“But this week is at the forefront of my mind right now because this is as big as it gets.”