As darkness descends: Shane Lowry on Tour's highs and lows, demons and distress

After the darkness of Grayson Murray's suicide, one is more convinced than ever that professional sports could be a much better place with a few more Shane Lowrys in it. A more honest place and a less lonely place at the same time

WALKING TALL: Shane Lowry buzzing as he contends in the final round of the PGA Championship at Valhalla in Louisville, Kentucky. Pic: Scott Taetsch via Getty Images

Shane Lowry spent last weekend with his family in downtown New York, off the block, off the clock. Yet even there, in the anonymity of the metropolis, the dark news found him.

That’s the thing with suicide and its instantly insidious trajectory, its you’re-never-gonna-be-the-same creeping journey. It can navigate its way up and then down the concrete canyons of the sleepless city just as easily as it trickles down a silent country lane. As easily as it breaks into a black-dark room at an unholy hour where a notification pings politely, a phone lights up blindingly and all is changed, changed utterly.

This wasn’t its first time finding Lowry. He’s a mid-to-late 30s male from rural Ireland. It’s found a staggering amount of us. Too too many. And it’s still finding, still creeping, still crushing.

This one may not have hit in the same way as the others. But still it hit. Grayson Murray was a PGA Tour pro, a fellow foot soldier in this slightly absurd, exclusive life that they all live. A co-worker, if this can ever be called work. Within days Lowry was back at the office here in Hamilton and true to himself — because he simply cannot be anything else — he found 20 minutes where there were none to talk about so many aspects of his current work life.

Ultimately at least a third of his time was devoted to the co-worker who wasn’t here and to the cause of death which took him at 30 years of age this day last week and just five short weeks since he’d been Lowry’s playing partner. 

Father's day: Lowry with his daughter, Ivy

It’s the same cause of death which Lowry’s home county of Offaly has had only limited success tackling. Once the national leader in suicide rates that’s no longer the case but the country’s grim statistic remains almost 20 per cent above national trends.

“It’s hard. I actually played a little bit of golf with Grayson this year. I played a couple of practice rounds with him and the last round I played with him was at Hilton Head on the Saturday,” Lowry told the Irish Examiner. “You know, Grayson has had an interesting career, he had his ups and downs and had been through an awful lot. Then when I heard it, it’s like fuck, you see someone, and then that happens.

“This is what I say about golfers, the ups and downs of professional golf. It’s amazing out here, the highs are so high. But my God, the lows are so low. They’re brutal. And maybe it wasn’t golf, maybe that’s not the reason that he did it. Maybe it was something else. But I just think of people looking in from the outside. You look at Grayson. He’s just won on Tour, he has everything going for him this year. But this is his darkest day and is that why he did it?

“I just say that to people: yes, the good times here are great but… I’m fortunate I have a great support team with me. I’m not saying Grayson didn’t but it’s so important because the lows are so fucking low. When you’re sitting in your hotel room after missing a cut, it’s the lowest place in the world. A lonely place.

"I got asked about it yesterday. A lady from [tournament sponsors] RBC was asking me what do I do? I said I’m fortunate that I don’t have those demons or those thoughts in me but I have had very low days in my career. But I have a great support system and I always have someone with me, always have someone to talk to. And I say the same to my friends.

“Look, I grew up in Clara in Offaly and three people I went to school with have passed away from suicide. One of them was quite recent, the same age as me, from my town. And [when I heard] I just texted all of my friends and said ‘lads, no matter what happens, or what is going on, just give me a fucking shout. Give me a call. Seriously’. That’s what people have to do. It’s a serious problem among males at home and Offaly and rural places have it."

Support team: Lowry with caddie Darren Reynolds

That answer is 390 words long. In this line of work, words, and the newsprint on which they’re printed, are at a premium. Lowry was just as engaging, as brutally raw and genuine on a number of pressing topics. But it feels important to run the answer in its entirety. Because maybe he was processing, as all who’ve had to process this must. Over time. Over conversations, even ones that are interruptions on the putting green as you're about to dial in to a drill. This is what it is and Lowry is who he is. And after a darkness like this, you’re more convinced than ever that professional sports could be a much better place with a few more Lowrys in it. A more honest place and a less lonely place at the same time.

It was the bravery and honesty of Murray’s family in publicly and quickly confirming that the two-time winner, who’d been open about mental health and addiction issues, “took his own life” that makes these kind of conversations easier. No need to go through a death notice for the telling adverb that informs.

Murray’s passing has remained a topic of conversation at this week’s RBC Canadian Open. But there are many others because that’s life and that’s golf, always hurtling forwards, too often at the expense of getting the read around much that’s gone before. Lowry’s week away from it all was timely because it gave him a little window of normality, some family down time, before one of the season’s most hectic stretches.

He left the PGA Championship in Valhalla the previous Sunday with a top 10 finish and a prominent place in the game’s record books thanks to a scintillating Saturday 62 which equalled the all-time low score for a Major. But departing Kentucky he took to his phone and posted a photo with the caption “I tried… I failed… and I’ll try again.

“Well, sixth is a failure, I would have said. Well it’s not success. So what’s not success? Do you know what I mean?” 

Lowry pondered as his support system of caddie Darren Reynolds and longtime friend and manager Brian Moran prepped his putting equipment. “If you’re not successful, you’re failing. I was probably a little harsh on myself saying that but I did try, I tried hard, I never gave up.

“When I’ve a chance to do something on Sunday I’m never happy with anything other than the win. Like even though I don’t win loads, I’ve won enough, a bit, in my career. But when you’ve a chance on a Sunday, yeah, sometimes you can have a great second-place finish. But in my head, I went out there in Valhalla with a job to do and I didn’t do it. You know, I’m 37, I was going out Sunday thinking ‘fuck, this is a great chance to get another Major’ and I didn’t do it, so it’s disappointing.” 

Happy days: Shane Lowry and Rory McIlroy celebrate winning the Zurich Classic of New Orleans at TPC Louisiana in April

Even his historic Saturday didn’t allow him to walk home from work happy. On a day when all of Lowry's wondrous talents just flowed, it was the putter that was most fluid. It hasn’t been his friend for some time. This season he ranks 124th on Tour in strokes gained on the green, 149th in putts per round. At Valhalla he flipped that script. Yet it was the final putt of moving day which vexed him, a 20-footer to shoot 61 and stand alone in the record books that dropped agonisingly low of the hole.

“Ah Jaysus, I was raging I missed that. I still am,” he said, wincing and closing his eyes again. “Somebody asked me about it yesterday and I told them ‘no one might ever shoot 61 — ever’. That could be a record that never gets broken. We might not get a Major venue like that for a long time again and no one might ever shoot that [61]. In my head I was raging I missed it. It’s funny how golf has you like that. That was one of the greatest rounds of my life and I was pissed off after it.” 

The next Major is unlikely to offer up a 61. In less than two weeks the US Open returns to Pinehurst No.2 for the first time in a decade. Lowry had to go through qualification in Walton Heath to make it there in 2014 and then missed the cut by a stroke. Ten years later he’ll be back as a Major champion, the world No. 33, a husband, a father of two and someone with the maturity to recognise his talents ought to have brought him a few more pots and pans by now.

“You just need to keep putting yourself there. That’s what golf is about. If you keep putting yourself there eventually it will come for you,” said Lowry, who plans to putt more and chip less around Pinehurst’s trademark greens this time around. “The Sunday at Valhalla was good. It was exciting. That’s what you play for. To be honest, that’s the only reason I get out of bed these days to go to practicing in the morning — not the only reason! — but the reason I get myself to practice is for shit like that Sunday. It’s the best buzz ever.” 

Then he’s off to practice some more. Back to work, surrounded by that support system, each of them even more valued than before.