Shane Lowry in Abu Dhabi yesterday. Picture: Getty

Shane Lowry and Pádraig Harrington might be close pals but no words are necessary when it comes to the subject of the Ryder Cup at Whistling Straits this year.

As he begins his defence of the Abu Dhabi HSBC Championship alongside Tommy Fleetwood and world No 1 Brooks Koepka today, the Open champion knows exactly what he has to do to make Harrington's team and talking about the elephant in the room is not going to make it go away.

"We actually don't talk about it at all," Lowry admitted. "It's not that we've made a conscious decision not to talk about it. We just don't talk about it."

Having kick-started 2020 with an encouraging runner-up finish in the Hong Kong Open last weekend, Lowry knows that if he plays to his potential, he should qualify for the team.

By his own admission, he tried too hard in the second half of last season as Open champion, breaking par in just 19 of the 36 rounds (a modest 52.7 percent) compared to 31 from 45 (68.89 percent) in the first half of the season.

As a result, it's been important to refocus on what made 2019 such a triumph.

"It has been quite overwhelming," Lowry told Golf Digest in Abu Dhabi. "Lots of little things have changed. When I am home in Dublin, I love going into town, strolling around and having a coffee.

"When I do that now, I notice everyone looking at me. My wife, Wendy, feels it too. When she leaves the house, she feels like everyone is staring. That won't seem like a problem to most people, but it is different. Not more difficult, but different.

"Don't get me wrong. I love being the Open champion. If you didn't love that you would have to ask yourself why are you playing the game.

"But it did take a while to adjust. And I probably did put too much pressure on myself at the end of last year to play well."

It can only be a good sign that he finished second in Hong Kong last week when teeing it up as the star attraction and while that pressure has been amplified in Abu Dhabi, where his image is plastered all around the venue where he’s been grouped with the world No 1 Brooks Koepka, he knows what to do.

"I felt like I coped with it very well," he said of his new-found status as a global superstar. "Obviously I'm here this week as defending champion, and I've got great group tomorrow, Tommy and Brooks.

"It's exciting to be in those pairings... playing with the top players in the world. It's where I see I'm at at the minute with my game."

Joking, he added: "Obviously I didn't request that my mug be put everywhere around the course, just to let you know that."

The trick this winter has been to hit the re-set button and build on the foundations he laid last year by gutting it out to win in Abu Dhabi and then ride that wave of self-confidence to Open glory at Royal Portrush.

"We talked about it a lot last winter, and we talked about it a lot this winter again, going out to shoot the best score I can every day," he said of his heart-to-heart chats with coach Neil Manchip.

"Look, I go out tomorrow, might be 72, it might be 62, but I know it's the best I can do, and I've prepared as well as I can. I think if I do that for the whole season, I'll get to where I want to be.

"A lot of form is built on confidence, and that's what I gained from here last year. Obviously, I have it in my head what I want to achieve this year, and the main thing for me is make that Ryder Cup team. I've set everything out to do that.

"I think I need to just bring it back to basics and back to what I do best, and that's just being the best version of myself every day, and that's all I can do."

Josh Hill of England (left) poses with Tommy Fleetwood after being presented with a Guinness World Record certificate for being the youngest male to win a professional golf tournament aged 15 years and 210 days ahead of the Abu Dhabi HSBC Championsh… — Josh Hill of England (left) poses with Tommy Fleetwood after being presented with a Guinness World Record certificate for being the youngest male to win a professional golf tournament aged 15 years and 210 days ahead of the Abu Dhabi HSBC Championship at Abu Dhabi Golf Club. Photo by Tom Dulat/Getty Images

There is no doubt that an in-form Lowry would be a huge asset to Harrington's European team and players like Fleetwood would clearly welcome his presence in Wisconsin.

"I think one thing I've always admired about him is how sort of freely he plays, especially when he's playing well," Fleetwood said of the man who denied him the Claret Jug.

"I love the flow to his swing. I think he's got one of the best short games in world golf, and I think when he matches that up with hitting it well, he's obviously very hard to beat."

Like Lowry last year, Fleetwood knows what it's like to build a great season on a win in Abu Dhabi having won the title in 2017 and 2018 to jump from 99th in the world to 10th this week.

"I just think getting that confidence from this win helped him a lot," said the Southport man, who suffered the result of that injection of confidence at Royal Portrush,

"As annoying as it was because I was the one that finished second, I thought he handled himself very well and he played great and he did everything on that Sunday in the right way.

"I think he knows when he plays well, he's got a lot of confidence about him and he knows he can compete with anybody.

"At the end the day, he's won a World Golf Championships, he's won a major, and he knows how to do it."

Lowry has no doubt that winning in Abu Dhabi opened the doors to a memorable 2019.

“Very fortunately, it was obviously my best year-to-date,” he said. “I couldn't really envisaged what happened. It was obviously really nice to get off to an unbelievable start here, winning one of the biggest events on Tour. This course, this tournament, against this field every year is a really, really difficult tournament to win, and it obviously kick-started an unbelievable season. Last year, I led the whole week but found myself four behind with seven to play on the last day. I showed a lot of character, determination and heart to win that day, and hope to do it again.”

He prepared for 2020 by undergoing a short boot camp with trainer Robbie Cannon in Dubai and ended up showing off some blisters on his hands on social media before heading to Hong Kong.

“The hands got a bit soft over Christmas. I played one round of golf in December and wasn't used to it. I came and I only had four days here in Dubai, so I was trying to squeeze a lot of practice in, more practice than I normally do. Yeah, managed a few blisters but they are somewhat cleared up now. Nothing along the lines of Alex Noren's hands or anything. But I suppose it's hard luck for me.

”I basically had my trainer with me, and we were in the gym at 7.00 every morning and we went to the golf course, practiced all day and went to the gym again. We probably left the gym at 7.00, 8.00 that evening and went for dinner and went to bed. It was like a little mini boot camp, but it was fine. It was good fun, actually. I really enjoyed it.”

Daniel Robinson and Brooks Koepka of The United States speak during the Pro-Am ahead of the Abu Dhabi HSBC Championship. Photo by Andrew Redington/Getty Images

With the Ryder Cup and the Olympic Games on his radar this year, Lowry’s schedule has largely written itself and he will again skip the Scottish Open before heading to Royal St George’s for The Open.

“I don't think it's possible to kind of duplicate or replicate what you did last year,” he said. “But clearly, I didn't do things the same as I did last year because I went and played Hong Kong last week.

“Last year, I had like two weeks practice out here before Abu Dhabi, but turns out going to Hong Kong actually was a really good thing for me last week, because it gave me confidence there and had a chance to win and it was very exciting. It was a nice start to the year.

”I'm probably not going to play The Scottish Open this year because I didn't play it last year and I went on and won The Open. Stuff like that, you might try that for a few years. I know like Harrington, he had to play the week before The Open. He used to play in the Irish PGA every year, and that led him to win his couple of Opens.

”I just think, yeah, there's little things that you might try and do the same, but it's very hard to kind of replicate what you've done a year ago.”

Harrington (48) continues his policy of getting to know the young guns on tour by starting his 25th season alongside last year's Challenge Tour No 1 Francesco Laporta and Denmark's Rasmus Hojgaard (18), who won the Mauritius Open in December.

The Dubliner will be hoping for another European victory in Abu Dhabi and keeping a weather eye out for the likes of young Norwegian Viktor Hovland (22), who makes just his second European Tour appearance as a professional.

Sergio Garcia of Spain in action during the Pro-Am ahead of the Abu Dhabi HSBC Championship at Abu Dhabi Golf Club on January 15, 2020 in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates. (Photo by Tom Dulat/Getty Images)

As for Koepka, it's been projected that he must finish no worse than tied 51st in Abu Dhabi and hope that Rory McIlroy does not win the Farmers Insurance Open next week if he's to hold on to his world number one spot.

Spain’s Sergio Garcia is also in Abu Dhabi with PING clubs in his bag having failed to come to an agreement with Callaway to renew his deal.

He’s also planning to change his on-course demeanour at the age of 40 and he will return to Saudi Arabia in a fortnight having made headlines last year for deliberately damaging greens in Saudi Arabia, resulting in his disqualification.

“I feel terrible about what happened last year,” he said. “Obviously there were some outside things that got me to that point.

“You know, I want to go there. I want to show my respect to them. You know, the easy thing would have been for me to hide and never come back there, but I love the people there, and I love the guys, all the people we met and the Sheikh and everyone that takes care of us during the tournament.

”So that was an easy decision, and I'm excited to go back there, show myself, show the true Sergio, and show them my respect and try to play the best that I can, and hopefully have a great tournament.”