"Drained" Lowry running on fumes as Leona seeks season-ending bonus
Shane Lowry reacts to a missed putt on the ninth hole during the second round at the 2021 U.S. Open at Torrey Pines Golf Course in San Diego, Calif. on Friday, June 18, 2021. (Chris Keane/USGA)
Shane Lowry made his Ryder Cup dream come true this year, but the physical and mental fallout has been huge and now running on “fumes”, he can't wait to get home after this week's DP World Tour Championship.
Like Leona Maguire, who made the Solheim Cup team but wants to challenge for her maiden LPGA Tour win in the $5 million CME Globe Tour Championship in Florida, the affable Clara man (34) needs a break after a gruelling year.
"Oh, I can't wait to get home," said the Offaly man, who missed the cut in his last two PGA Tour starts but admits he should have taken time off rather than trying to get his US starts up for the 2021-22 season.
"Since the Ryder Cup, I've been running on the smell of an oily rag. The whole year, and for the two years since I won The Open, I've been spending my time trying to make the Ryder Cup team. I achieved that goal but just felt like I left everything there.
"We've had six majors in some 10 months, the Olympics, the Ryder Cup and it's made for a tough and demanding year.
“I have played pretty much every week since we came back from the Covid lockdown. There have been no real breaks and it’s just been go, go, go in striving the make the Olympic side, make the Ryder Cup team so it’s been all this and that.
"I've been struggling for motivation. I've been struggling out on the golf course. I've not been playing bad golf, but mentally I've not been there. It's amazing that your performance can really suffer from that."
He found Whistling Straits so exhausting, he's unsurprised Jon Rahm is not in Dubai this week.
"I didn't really understand what it like or how you would feel post the Ryder Cup, but I spoke to Westy last week and he took six weeks off after it," Lowry said. "I know the Ryder Cup is only three days golf, but it builds up so much in your head and when the competition begins, you just give it your everything, and once it's all over, it's such a low. From being on such a high, it's all such a come down."
Unsurprised by Rahm's withdrawal from Dubai—"you do feel mentally and physically drained"—he added: "I gave it my all the last weeks out on the PGA Tour, but I was just wasn't there mentally or physically."
Like 20th-ranked Rory McIlroy, 18th-ranked Lowry can't win the Race to Dubai with leader Collin Morikawa—awarded Honorary Life Membership of the European Tour—favourite to become the first American winner as long as Billy Horschel finishes worse than a two-way tie for eighth and Tyrrell Hatton, Min Woo Lee, Matt Fitzpatrick or Paul Casey don't win.
GRAND RAPIDS, MICHIGAN - JUNE 18: Leona Maguire of Ireland waves to fans after a par on the third green during round two of the Meijer LPGA Classic for Simply Give at Blythefield Country Club on June 17, 2021 in Grand Rapids, Michigan. (Photo by Gregory Shamus/Getty Images)
As for Maguire, she tees it up in the $5 million CME Group Tour Championship at Tiburón Golf Club in Florida treating the week as a bonus.
"It's great to be at the last event, which is only for the top 60 players," said 17th-ranked Maguire, who slipped to 28th in last week's Pelican Women's Championship after opening with a blistering 62. "A goal at the start of the year was to make it to this event, so I want to finish off as strong as I possibly can.
"I played some great golf last week and then not so great in the last round. But that's golf. These things happen. I am just treating this as a bonus week. The goal at the start of the year was to finish top 40 on the CME Globe Points list, so I am way inside that. So, whatever happens, this week will be a bonus.
“It’s been a great year but it’s also been a long year and quite a draining year. There have been a lot of big events with all the majors and the Olympics in the same year. It seems a long time ago since we started here in Florida and yet since the summer it’s flown by pretty quickly.”
Maguire finished tied 46th behind Jin Young Ko last year and the world No 45 is looking forward to the challenge after a season that’s brought two runner-up finishes, five top-10s, 10 top-20s and a record-setting rookie performance in the Solheim Cup, where she won four and a half points out of five in a sensational European win.
“I played here last year so I know the golf course,” she said. “It’s a good golf course and it’s playing long. The way the north wind is, it’s probably going to play at the longer end. Conditions are going to be a little tougher than last week so it’s about hitting a lot of fairways and a lot of greens.”
There’s $1.5 million up for grabs for the winner this week and world No 1 Nelly Korda is looking for a fifth LPGA Tour win in a season that also brought Olympic gold.
She made a 22-foot birdie putt to win a four-way playoff at the Pelican Women’s Championship on Sunday and she feels good about her chances.
“Last week was definitely a confidence boost, but I've always said it's really hard to kind of win back to back because you're a little mentally and physically drained from the week prior,” Korda said. “So making sure that I'm well-rested and that I'm 100% going into Thursday, and that I'll be 100% going into Sunday as well is probably going to be my main focus this week.”
Lying second in the Race to CME Globe standings to Jin Young Ko, she added: “It would be crazy to win. You never know but good golf will solve that. I haven't even teed it up on Thursday, or the pro-am, so still a long way away. It would be nice to win another one at home. Before this year, I didn't win a tournament on home soil so it would be nice to do it in front of family.”
