Class act Lowry won't wilt like Rose
Shock Irish Open winner Shane Lowry has the heart and the talent to avoid the same rookie nightmare as English star Justin Rose.
Shane LowryAt least that’s the view of tour veterans Eamonn Darcy and Des Smyth, who racked up an incredible 1,204 European Tour appearances between them.
Lowry, 22, got his first taste of the cut-throat world of professional golf when he missed the cut by six shots on his debut in the European Open at The London Club this week.
But the grand old men of Irish professional golf can’t see the chunky Clara man struggling to the same extent as Rose, who became an instant star when he finished fourth in the 1998 Open Championship at Birkdale as a 17-year old amateur, turned pro the following week and then racked up an incredible 21 missed cuts in a row.
“You don’t win a tournament as big as the Irish Open and not have huge ability,” said Smyth, who played his 594th European Tour event in the Irish Open two weeks ago. “I wouldn’t have any concerns. He’ll take a little time to settle in, but once he does that he will be fine.
“He wouldn’t be used to the hullabaloo that followed his win and that takes a bit of getting used to. The problem with success is that you have the press and TV and managers all ringing and all of a sudden you are not doing what you normally do.
“He will learn how to handle that but he certainly won’t be treated as anything special out there. All he has to do is play his game. It’s good enough and he has proved that already.”
Lowry decided he was going professional just minutes after holing the 18 inch putt that made him the first amateur to win on his European Tour debut.
The official announcement came the following Thursday and just 11 days after his victory, he began his pro career on one of the toughest courses on the schedule and soared to four over par after just six holes.
An opening 78 was not what he was hoping for and while he steadied the ship with a respectable 73 on Friday, his hopes of flying under the radar for the remainder of the summer may well be a pipe-dream.
The pressure mounted on Rose as the missed cuts piled up but he believes that his horrific experience made him a stronger in the end.
“It seems like another lifetime and another person,” Rose recalled. “Though I don't regret it. It gave me the strength to cope with whatever this game can throw at you.”
Ranked as high as sixth in the world, it took Rose four years to grab his first professional win.
But Darcy, a player with 610 European Tour notches on his belt, reckons the Offaly lad has the skills and the mental toughness to go out and let his clubs do the talking.
“First of all, he has to be a hell of a player to have won that Irish Open,” Darcy said. “And he is as tough as they come as we saw by the way he handled himself at Baltray.
“He just has to play like he knows he can play. He has to keep free. If he starts tightening up and thinking about it, putting pressure on himself, he will have problems.
“You can’t make into a big deal. At the end of the day it is a game of golf and if he builds it up too much he could end up like poor Justin Rose.
“I knew it was going to be a big transition for him turning pro because the courses they play, he has to hit the ball straight and he was spraying a few in Baltray.
“You can’t do that on the European Tour because they put a huge premium on hitting it straight. It probably hasn’t really hit him that he won the Irish Open and he was in a bit of a dream world this week.
“But he was plus five as an amateur which is a hell of a handicap, so he can certainly play. He has everything going for him with the two and a half year exemption and so long as he doesn't go changing his swing, he'll be fine.”
Lowry will get his second bite of the cherry in next week’s Celtic Manor Wales Open and he won't be short of good advice from the likes of stablemate Graeme McDowell or former amateur partner Rory McIlroy.
McDowell certainly knows how tough it can be to gain a foothold on the tour.
The Ulsterman was just 23 when he won his maiden European Tour title in only his fourth start. But he triumphed just once more in the next five years as he struggled to get to grips with life on tour
“These guys are good out here and that’s going to be the shock,” McDowell predicted at the start of the week. “He ran rings around them last week there in Baltray but it's back to reality a little bit this week as he is really starting from scratch.
“It really depends how he deals with all mentally. It’s a big change, a big step and he’s into the pro world now. It’s a cut-throat world.”
McIlroy shot down the importance of Lowry’s first round 78, saying: “One round doesn’t define a career.”
But Anthony Wall, who outscored playing partner Lowry by 13 strokes over the the first two days in Kent, knows that the Offaly man has a lot to learn on a tour that stands still for no-one.
Still waiting for his second European Tour win, nine years after he claimed the 2000 Alfred Dunhill Championship, Wall said: “Shane's a good player but he obviously has a lot to learn. Winning an event is 20 hours of golf and you have got to be on your game nowadays because there is no messing around.”
The good news for Lowry is that he has two and a half years to earn his spurs.
He's already proved he's a class act. Now it's time to show he's no one-hit wonder.