Alan Truex: Ireland unites behind jaunty Shane Lowry at The Open

Shane Lowry is not the one you expected to emerge from the dunes and ridges, the links of Portrush, Northern Ireland, to clutch golf’s most coveted trophy, the silver Claret Jug.  If you believed golfing cognoscenti or Vegas bookmakers, it was supposed to go to Rory McIlroy, or Bruce Koepka. Or, for sentimentalists, Tiger Woods. All three are chiseled pros.  In Tiger’s case, maybe chiseled away. 

Lowry, the affable winner of the 148th British Open, is a different sort.  Until now he’s been a journeyman on the PGA and European tours.  In last year’s Open, at Carnoustie, he missed the cut and cried in his car.  He missed 5 cuts in 11 PGA events heading into his stunning dominance at Royal Portrush on the castled shore.  

Lowry has a dad’s bod: 6-1, 230 pounds, a spare tire, balding dome, dense reddish beard.  Nobody calls him “a young 32.” Tiger Woods at 43 looks better, though he doesn’t look too good, limping and writhing with his twisted back.  

Be that however, Lowry took the 130-year-old Royal Portrush by storm on Sunday, if the weather didn’t.  With wind and rain lashing him during the climactic – rather, anticlimactic – round, he unerringly navigated a massively undulating course like it was his home.  Which, in a sense, it was.

Lowry was born in the southern half of Ireland, which not long enough ago was in bitter, violent dispute with Northern Ireland.  The galleries of Royal Portrush were solidly in league with McIlroy, charismatic 30-year-old who set a record on this historic course with a 61 as a 16-year-old.

But McIlroy, who also was the favorite in Vegas, Opened with a quadruple-bogey on his way to a 79.  He followed that wreck of a first round with the saddest-ever 65, which wasn’t good enough to survive the cut.  Such a good thing for Lowry – or not – to become the local beloved.  “Everybody knows it’s one country,” he said, “when it comes to golf.”  

But of course, that meant more pressure on him.  Pressure that McIlroy, his childhood pal and winner of three majors, found too much to bear.

With McIlroy tearfully exiting, Lowry gave the Irish every reason to cheer as he strolled to a 6-stroke victory.  From the beginning of this tournament to the end, he was the only player with consistent command of his game. He was ferocious from the tee, low drives zipping through the wind; he was best in the field at landing in a fairway. 

And on the few occasions when he encountered trouble, he scrambled like Tiger when he was Shane’s age, 32, and ever so much leaner.  

As well as he was swinging and putting, building a 4-shot lead after 54 holes, Lowry admitted to extreme nervousness with Sunday’s round approaching.  He was haunted by the 4-shot margin he squandered in the last round of the 2016 U.S. Open. His career highlight since? He won something that was actually named the Abu Dahbi Championship.

He hardly seemed prepared for this moment.  He said the way he deals with stress is to “meet it head on.”   As he sought sleep on Saturday night he kept the image in his head of a silver pitcher.  

He knew his playing partner for the final round, Tommy Fleetwood, was capable of a low number; he had only two bogeys over the first 54.  Though gangly at 5-11, 166 pounds, Fleetwood is entering his prime at age 28, with a full arsenal. He has four wins on the European Tour. 

And being from Southport, England, Fleetwood knows links golf.  He possibly had the psychological advantage: ample support from family and friends, but not the weight of a fractured country on his shoulders.  “It was incredibly difficult,” Lowry said, “trying to win an Open in your home country. I got off to a shaky start, the most uncomfortable I’ve ever felt on a golf course.”

But his spirits were lifted by fans chanting and serenading him in Irish.  Hundreds, perhaps thousands, drove four hours from his home town of Clara to watch him close out his Open.  

“They made me feel like we were going to do it,” Lowry said.  “They got me through. I was struggling in the middle of the round, made a couple of bogeys.  But when I had a look at the leader board I saw that most people were doing that.”  

As drama would not have it, the destination of the Claret Jug was established at the 14th hole, with Lowry and Fleetwood still 4 shots apart.  For Fleetwood to win, a charge must begin with this 473-yard par 4.  Pick up a couple of shots here, and he has a strong chance of gaining others at 15, 16, 17 or 18.

Alas, Fleetwood drives too far, into a bunker, 130 yards from the pin.  Daringly, as he had to be, he takes a full swing through the sand and overshoots the green.  Way over. His golf ball defies gravity and all the expert chatter about intermittent rains making the grass heavy and unyielding.  Instead of slowing, the tiny white ball bounds up a hillock like it’s a baby rabbit, and it joins a crowd of startled spectators.

Fleetwood maintained his Englishman’s poise and rallied from this debacle to set up a straight-on 9-foot putt for bogey.  But he missed by a quarter-inch on the low side.  

Match over.  As Lowry put it: “It was rainy and windy, and I thought, ‘Five bogeys aren’t gonna hurt me.  I just have to keep the ball in play.’”

In this North Atlantic gale – hey, links golf at its most stirring — he salvaged a bogey on 14 and thus stretched to 5-up on Fleetwood. 

With a crowd looming over him from a ridge behind No. 15, Lowry sank a 6-footer for par, and he parred the rest of the holes. 

“Horrendous weather,” Fleetwood said later, trying not to sound grumbly.  “Shane hit the right shots, even if they weren’t always great shots. And he putted better than I did.”

Lowry shot 1-over par 72 for the final round.  Koepka, who was T-4 for the Open with a Sunday 74, observed: “To shoot one over in those conditions, that’s unbelievable.”

Indeed, this is the most treacherous of golf tournaments.  Kentucky’s J.B. Holmes, who has much the same pudgy build as Lowry, led this Open after the first round, was tied for the lead after the second round, but fired an inconceivable 87 on Sunday.

The tournament ended in a hugfest on the 18th green: Lowry and family, including his parents and wife Wendy.  Irish eyes were smiling and his were sobbing as he lifted his 2-year-old daughter Iris and held her in his arms.  

Thus concluded golf’s Grand Slam for 2019.  The PGA this year condensed its schedule of majors to put more focus on its FedEx Cup, which it trumpets as “one more big title.”

Justin Rose, former U.S. Open champ, feels the realigned scheduling is a mistake, making it difficult for players to be fully prepared for the majors.  “For me,” he said, “major championships should be what’s protected the most. That’s how all our careers ultimately are going to be measured.”