Zurich Classic win could be catalyst for Shane Lowry and Rory McIlroy

There is a quote attributed to Arnold Palmer, aka “The King”. It goes along the lines of, “Winning isn’t everything; but wanting it is.” And the reaction of Shane Lowry in embracing his team-mate in a bear hug before lifting him skywards after a playoff victory in the Zurich Classic of New Orleans fittingly conveyed the emotions of that winning moment, one which – more so for Lowry – will reap huge benefits.

Straight off, the win means that Lowry will be playing in the upcoming PGA Tour signature tournaments – those $20 million money fests with limited fields, starting with the Wells Fargo Championship at Quail Hollow next week – and also strengthens his ambition to finally make it all the way to the Tour Championship, where the FedEx Cup is decided. So far in his career, Lowry has never managed to make it to East Lake in Atlanta.

The upshot of the Zurich Classic success – a 25th career win on the PGA Tour for McIlroy, a third for Lowry – was that both players leapfrogged up the FedEx Cup standings: McIlroy from 44th to 15th; Lowry even better, from 41st to 12th. Although there were no world ranking points available in the novel two-man team event, this was a case where the FedEx order of merit points were actually the more valuable for the two. Also, it earned each a pay-day of $1.28 million (€1.19 million).

The win, when it came, was produced at the first playoff hole where Lowry and McIlroy’s par five on the 18th was sufficient to outduel Chad Ramey and Martin Trainer after the two teams had finished tied on 25-under-par 263 in the tournament, which concluded with a final round foursomes.

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We’ve seen the connection between Lowry and McIlroy in the heat of the Ryder Cup, but the decision to team-up in this tournament – taken over a dinner last October – will probably provide a catalyst to each of their seasons: for Lowry, it has freed up his diary to be one of his own choosing, with no need to seek sponsors’ invitations into the signature tournaments, and it will bring that old strut back to McIlroy, who had struggled to find any form stateside until this win.

“We both felt like we needed to come in here and maybe have a very strong week because we wanted to get our summer going, and we’ve got a lot of big golf coming up soon ... because I wasn’t going to be in Quail Hollow. I was hoping to get an invite for Memorial. I was hoping to get an invite there and Travelers. I really didn’t know what was going to happen. I knew I needed to make up some FedEx Cup points, and this gets me in those, and it means I can plan my schedule now,” said Lowry.

“With family stuff and my wife and kids going back to Ireland in the summer, it means I really don’t have to stay over here and grind it out too long,” he continued. “I can do more what I feel like I wanted to do. It’s freed me up a lot this summer. Hopefully we can both kick on now. We’ve got three Majors left. Hopefully we can get one each, or maybe two and one.”

To which McIlroy jumped in, “that would be nice!”

Those upcoming Majors come thick and fast with next month’s US PGA at Valhalla in Kentucky, where McIlroy won his fourth career Major in 2014, followed by the US Open at Pinehurst in June and the British Open at Royal Troon in July. The two players will also be representing Ireland in the Olympics in Paris later in the summer.

This win was Lowry’s first on the PGA Tour since his Claret Jug success at Royal Portrush in 2019 and his first win anywhere since claiming the BMW PGA Championship in 2022. McIlroy had won the Dubai Desert Classic on the DP World Tour in January but had managed only one top-10 (in the Valero Texas Open) in eight outings before teaming up with Lowry in New Orleans.

“To win any PGA Tour event is very cool, but to do it with one of your closest friends, we’ve known each other for a long, long time, probably like over 20 years, so to think about where we met and where we’ve come from, to be on this stage and do this together, really, really cool journey that we’ve been a part of. Just awesome to be able to do it alongside this guy,” said McIlroy, who clearly enjoyed playing with Lowry.

The pair didn’t waste any time in committing to do it all again next year in defence of the title. “Having this guy to lean on, that was what fueled me,” claimed McIlroy, “the reason that Shane and I both started to play golf is because we thought it was fun at some stage in our life. I think sort of reinjecting a little bit of that fun back into it in a week like this week, it can always help.”

The significance of McIlroy reaching the magic 25 win mark on the PGA Tour provided another milestone: he became the first player to reach that tally in 19 years, the feat last accomplished by both Phil Mickelson and Vijay Singh back in 2005.

Neither McIlroy nor Lowry are in the field for this week’s PGA Tour stop, the CJ Cup, where Séamus Power is the lone Irish player competing.