AS THE EUROPEAN team stood backstage and in line to be called onto stage at yesterday’s opening ceremony at the Ryder Cup, Viktor Hovland made the small talk and said he had that day had his best session on the range for two years.
“F*****g yes”, exclaimed Lowry, embracing Hovland and adding, “That’s what I like to hear.”
Lowry was being genuine. His love of the Ryder Cup runs deep and he has no interest in hiding it.
“I can’t be anyone but myself”, says Lowry, “and the way I think about things is maybe different to other players. Other players might be more individual, but honestly, I love this. I live for this.”
He lives for this as he lives for life as part of a team. This was his family’s sporting life, to which Lowry made oblique reference in an earlier press conference when he responded a question about his first sporting ambitions by saying he grew up dreaming of winning an All-Ireland medal with Offaly in Croke Park.
Golf has provided Lowry with a lengthier and wildly more lucrative career, but only the Ryder Cup can satisfy his craving for the camaraderie his father and uncle could take as a given in Offaly and Ferbane dressing rooms.
“Professional golf is monotonous”, says Lowry. “Week-in, week-out, you’re on your own. You’re playing practice rounds on your own. You’re sitting on a Tuesday morning having breakfast on your own. It can get a little bit boring and a little bit, ‘What’s this all about?’
“When you’re here this week, you have your team-mates, so you have people to laugh with, you have people to be serious with, to hang on to and bounce off and feed off, and I enjoy that much more.
“It is what it is. It’s much more enjoyable than the week-in, week-out grind of professional golf. That’s what I love so much about it. You’re not only here playing for yourself, or your family and friends and the people you play for all year, it’s a lot more than that. That’s what I love so much about it.”
Lowry made his Ryder Cup debut under Pádraig Harrington in heavy defeat at Whistling Straits in 2021, but returned two years later as part of Luke Donald’s victorious side in Rome. Across both his sheer enthusiasm for the whole enterprise was irresistible, a commitment many of the rusty, jet-lagged Americans must have found utterly daunting two years ago.
“I think what got me here is being myself, and I think I have to be the best version of myself this week”, he says. “If my emotions do come out, it will be a good thing in certain ways.
“When we’re sitting over there in the team room and back in the hotel, I think I bring good energy, good vibes, a sense of lightheartedness to the team.
“Honestly, the last two weeks, I’ve never laughed so much in my whole life. We’ve just had a great time. We’ve enjoyed getting ready together, preparing together, and I
think I kind of bring some of that to everyone.
“Yeah, but obviously that’s no good to anyone if I don’t play well and win points. There’s no point being good fun if you don’t perform.”
Lowry’s Ryder Cup record is mixed, matching the cadence of his team’s varying results at Whistling Straits and Rome. He played only fourballs in 2021, winning a point with Tyrrell Hatton but losing with Rory McIlroy, both against Tony Finau and Harris English.
Two years later he played only foursomes: twice with Sepp Straka, first beating Rickie Fowler and Collin Morikawa and then losing to Max Homa and Brian Harmon. Singles-wise, he was beaten by Patrick Cantlay in 2021 and tied with Jordan Spieth two years ago.
The Europeans have spent this week playing practice rounds in groups of four, with Lowry out with McIlroy on Tuesday and again today. Asked today whether this means he and McIlroy will reprise their defeated partnership from Whistling Straits, Lowry replied, “We’ll see.”
“If you had told someone on the Sunday evening at Whistling Straits that we would have won in Rome and coming here to Bethpage with a chance to win, they would have laughed at you”, says Lowry. “To be part of a team coming here with the chance to do something so big, that’s a huge carrot dangling for us. We have a great opportunity this week. Like I say, it’s going to be very very hard, but I think we are ready for it and we will give it our best shot. “
