Shane Lowry would love to be defending The Open at Royal St George's this week but insists he has no fears for the future of the game despite Bryson DeChambeau's big-hitting feats.

As he waits for major golf to return at next month's PGA Championship, he admits he's intrigued to see how well DeChambeau can do in the game's most stringent tests.

"I think obviously Bryson has had a great run since he started back and he started doing all this, and he's won once," said the Offaly many, who revealed that his regular caddie Brian Martin will return on his bag for the FedEx St Jude Invitational in a fortnight.

"But I think if you look back on it, and I think a lot of people missed out on this when he won that tournament, he won [topped] putting stats, and won putting stats convincingly. I think most weeks you go out to play a tournament, you know that you need to probably finish in the top-five in the putting stats to win the tournament no matter how well you hit it. You can hit it as well as you like.

"Look, it'll be interesting to see how he plays this course this week because there's certain bunkers at 320 yards that are just not in play for him and they're probably in play for even the longer hitters; the Rorys and the Brookses and those guys can't carry them, but he can."

“When we do get to the majors and when we do get to the U.S. Open, it’ll be interesting to see how he does do then. ”

— Shane Lowry on Bryson DeChambeau's power hitting

Many worry that some of golf's classic courses will be made obsolete if DeChambeau continues to have success driving the ball close to 400 yards and a host of players follow his lead. Lowry isn’t one of the.

"I'm not really worried for the game because I think you still need to be very skilful, and I think Bryson DeChambeau for the last few years has been a top-5 player in the world anyway," Lowry said. "It's just he's finding a different way to get the ball from A to B and get the ball in the hole.”

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DETROIT, MICHIGAN - JULY 05: Bryson DeChambeau celebrates his win during the final round of the Rocket Mortgage Classic at the Detroit Golf Club on July 05, 2020 in Detroit, Michigan. (Photo by Leon Halip/Getty Images)

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ATLANTA, GEORGIA - AUGUST 24: Bryson DeChambeau of the United States checks his yardage book on the eighth green during the third round of the TOUR Championship at East Lake Golf Club on August 24, 2019 in Atlanta, Georgia. (Photo by Streeter Lecka/Getty Images)

He added: "I just think it would be very interesting to see how it plays out. But I think the worst thing people can do is try and make golf courses longer. I just think they need to make them harder because to make them longer, it just plays into the long hitters' hand.

“There's a new tee on 15 this week, and we played it last week, and if I hit a good drive, I'm off of the upslope with a blind second shot from 260 yards, whereas Bryson and Rory and these guys are hitting to the top of the hill and hitting an iron on to the green. The way I would like to see it curtailed would be to make golf courses harder, and when we do get to the majors and when we do get to like the U.S. Open, it'll be interesting to see how he does do then.

"But as regards now, I don't think it's a huge issue, but obviously some people do. But like I say, I think no matter what, you need to putt well to win any week."

Lowry knows he has to putt well to put some decent results on the board after a low-key return to tour golf since the COVID-19 lockdown.

Following missed cuts in the Charles Schwab Challenge and the RBC Heritage, he tied for 60th in the Travelers Championship before finishing tied 39th at Muirfield Village last week.

"I felt good about the way things were, and then obviously this happened," he said of his form before the lockdown. "We came back out, and I worked very hard in my time off, probably as hard as I've ever worked in my life on the range and in the gym and came back out hoping to get off to a great start, and I didn't really do what I would have liked.

"I missed a couple of cuts and had a couple of average weeks the last two weeks, but I'm still fairly optimistic where my game is at. Like I said, I made 20 birdies and an eagle last week, and I'm pretty happy with that. I just need to cut out the mistakes this week, and you never know what could happen."

As for missing The Open, he was philosophical.

"I wouldn't say it's hard to get my head around the fact that we're not playing this week because, like I said, I don't kind of dwell on things. Things happen. We're certainly not in control of what's happening in the world at the minute. We just have to deal with the cards we're given.

Shane Lowry celebrates following his victory in the 148th Open Championship. Photo by Ross Kinnaird/R&A/R&A via Getty Images

"Obviously I'd love to be in St. George's this week defending. I'd love if we were playing in front of 40,000 or 50,000 people this week in St. George's. I'd love, like everybody in the world, if things were back to normal, but they're not, and we kind of have to get on with that. So I certainly don't dwell on that."

He wants to win more majors having always believed that he had the game to compete in the biggest events. But he admits that winning at Royal Portrush 12 months ago was special.

"When you grow up where I grew up -- you know, I wasn't from a golfing family, so it probably would have taken a lot longer for me to realise what it actually is, but when I saw the magnitude of when Harrington won back in 2007 and 2008 and what it meant to the Irish people and how big it actually was, but even before that, when you start playing golf, and you realise how much you love golf and you start looking at golf on TV, and you watch the Open every year, for us where I grew up, it's the biggest tournament in the world.

"Like I've said all along the past year, I'm just very grateful that I got to achieve something like that, that I actually have one of those on my mantelpiece and my name will be on that trophy forever."

Asked what he missed most about Open week as he spends in at Muirfield Village, the course Jack Nicklaus named after the venue where he completed the career Grand Slam, Lowry said: "Every year you get to play in the Open, it's special. I've never played in the Open at [Royal] St. George's, so that would have been different. But just going back and giving back the Claret Jug and just doing the little things like that. I think just competing in one of the biggest tournaments in the world.

"Look, we're here, this is the biggest tournament in the world this week, the Memorial here, and this is a huge tournament in its own right, so I'm very happy to be competing here. But obviously, I'd love to be in St. George's.

"I miss the crowds, you miss the kind of buzz, the adrenaline you get from that, and I miss all that. I miss being announced on the first tee as defending champion, but I'm sure I'll get that next year. So everything that I miss or that I won't get to do this week, I'm sure I'll get to do next year."