Rested Lowry ready to pull it all together for Oak Hill
READY: Shane Lowry hoping to make an impact at the PGA Championship (Photo by Patrick Smith/Getty Images)
Oak Hill is only the second PGA Championship venue that Shane Lowry has qualified to play more than once (he played Whistling Straits in 2010 and ’15). But the 10 years and significant changes between trips to Rochester didn’t leave that lasting an impression.
“I know you're getting old when you're coming back to major venues,” said Lowry, who made the second of his now 12 U.S. PGA starts at Oak Hill in 2013, tying for 57th. “Honestly, I have no recollection of 2013. Like, I remember I played with (Darren) Clarkie in the final round. That's all I remember about the week. I don't remember the course, even out there. I was sure when I got here, I’d remember some holes. Yeah, nothing at all. So obviously, 10 years older.”
That lack of retained detail doesn’t mean Lowry doesn’t like what he’s seen playing 36 holes of practice on the restored course that has played host to six prior major championships and a Ryder Cup. He understands why the USGA and then PGA of America have made Oak Hill a recurring venue for the biggest events.
“If you were to ask me to describe a major venue, a major championship venue, I would describe this,” Lowry said. “That's just what it is. It's there in front of you. It's hard. You're gonna have to play golf, and it's kind of no messing about. I do like it like that. You just have to go out there and perform and everything needs to go well, yeah, but I do like what I see this week.”
The performing has not exactly been to Lowry’s high standards thus far in 2023. He ranks outside the top 100 in the PGA Tour’s season-long FedEx Cup points race, and only the top 100 qualify for the playoffs and top 50 will be exempt for all of the US $20 million designated events next year.
But Lowry did step up to finish tied 16 at the Masters and believes his game is starting to come together at the right time for the summer run of major events.
“It's okay,” he said of his form heading into Thursday’s opening round at 13:22 Irish time off the 10th hole with Jordan Spieth and Viktor Hovland. “I mean, look, I'd be completely honest, the start of the season or the last few months have not been as good as I would like. But I felt like I went to the Masters, which is the main tournament – you know, the one big, big tournament we've had so far this year – and I felt like I performed close to the best of my ability.
Lowry took some much needed time off after playing Hilton Head and came back to miss the cut two weeks ago in the Wells Fargo Championship at Quail Hollow – a venue he says he’s not likely to return to except when it hosts the PGA again in 2025. But despite his early exit, he left feeling better about his game than when he started.
“I actually felt like I got a lot out that week with missing the cut, which I was happy with,” he said. “It's never nice to miss a cut, but … it's probably the best I've ever felt after missing the cut, which is very weird. So, yeah, I had a nice week off to practice last week. I'm pretty happy.”
The trigger to his pleasure was that everything about his game seems to be in the right place except for his chipping.
“And it's funny, when that part of my game is not firing I feel like I don't need much to get it back, so that's why I was really, really happy,” he said. “I drove the ball pretty well. Everything else … like I felt like it was as good as I've hit putts at the hole all year.”
Putting has been Lowry’s biggest liability this season. He ranks a paltry 189th in the critical strokes gained putting statistic on tour, losing 0.59 strokes to the field on average on the greens. That’s something that has to change to shift the trajectory of his season.
“That would be the story of my year so far – (the putter) needs a furnace,” he said. “No, I just worked hard, just practised hard to figure out some things. I feel like I’m doing all the right things. So for me, it’s just a mental battle out there to just get it into the right place mentally where I allow myself to hit putts at holes. And as I say, Quail Hollow was probably the first tournament of the year where I was consistently rolling the ball at the hole, getting the ball past the hole from 15, 20 feet. I hit the hole a lot from mid-range. And I holed a lot as well. So like my chipping and my short game, my scoring clubs, let me down that week.”
Oak Hill’s new green complexes were restored in 2019 to bring in new corners and tiers that had been lost since Donald Ross first built the course in the 1920s. Lowry believes that provide a good test that he’s more equipped to handle now.
“They’re not gonna be ridiculously quick, there’s a good bit of slope in them that they can’t get them too quick,” he said. “So yeah, they’re a nice pace to be holing putts on. And look, it’s something as simple as a couple of putts drop early on in the week and you just never know. So I feel like, you know, it’s nice to be coming into a big tournament feeling like, all I need to happen is to hole a few putts. The rest of my game feels pretty good. I’m driving the ball pretty well, I'm pretty happy. You need to do that around here. So just see how it goes.”
With more weeks off than on in the last month as the second half of the season starts, Lowry says he’s primed to turn things around.
“I wouldn't say I'm recharged but I'm ready to go and we've got another busy stretch coming up,” he said. “I feel like it's just been all go this year so far. Obviously, we've got this (week), got the U.S. Open in a few weeks and you got the Open, so ready to go I suppose.”
CONNECT WITH US TODAY
Be the first to know the latest news and updates
