Lowry and Power bid to keep their FedEx Cup hopes alive
SHANE LOWRY is in no mood for a three-week American holiday and is targeting a big week in the Wyndham Championship so he can keep alive his hopes of winning the $15 million FedEx Cup jackpot.
The Open champion (33) goes into the final event of the regular season ranked 131st in the standings and in danger of failing to make the top 125 who will contest the first of three FedEx Playoff events next week.
He trails 125th-ranked Charl Schwartzel by 21 FedEx Cup points, which means he must finish 34th at the very worst if he’s not to face three weeks on the sidelines.
“Obviously the FedEx Cup Playoffs are huge and everybody wants to play in those and win that and get to East Lake and have a chance at the big prize,” Lowry said at Sedgefield Country Club in Greensboro, where he was seventh two years ago.
If he fails to perform, Lowry knows that he faces three weeks off before the Safeway Open in California, which would be his warm-up event for the US Open at Winged Foot.
“For me, I need to focus on this week and have as good a week as I can,” Lowry said. “If it is good enough to get in next week, I need to build myself up for that and move on.
“That’s the great thing about this game and this tour. There is always next week or something else to play for. So I will play as well as I can this week, dust myself off and see what my next tournament will be and then go on from there.”
Lowry was disappointed to finish 66th in last week’s PGA Championship at TPC Harding Park, where he missed too many fairways and struggled at times on the greens.
“If I can just clean that up over the next while I can hopefully make it to the Playoffs and hopefully have a run there, then obviously go to Winged Foot,” he said.
“That will be a test that I’m looking forward to and a test that I will like, I think.”
He won’t return home until after the US Open due to the quarantine restrictions, and if he fails to make the Playoffs, he plans to simply “play golf” in the US with Bandon Dunes in Oregon a course on his wish list.
Ranked 108th, Graeme McDowell looks guaranteed his place in the first Playoff event, the Northern Trust at TPC Boston next week.
But West Waterford’s Seamus Power is 161st after only extending his season with a top-10 finish in the Barracuda Championship two weeks ago.
The Munster man would need a top-four finish to qualify for the Playoffs, but he could also improve his current status (he was 143rd last year) with another top-10. The field includes 16 of the world’s top 50, including Brooks Koepka, who will be keen to bounce back from his disappointing finish in the PGA Championship.
The European Tour is in Wales for the Celtic Classic – the fourth leg of the six-tournament UK Swing and the first of back-to-back events at Celtic Manor.
Paul McGinley (53) returns to the scene of his 2001 Celtic Manor Wales Open win for his first European Tour appearance for 22 months and is joined in Wales by Gavin Moynihan, Cormac Sharvin and Jonathan Caldwell.
On the PGA Tour Champions, Darren Clarke makes his first start since March when he tees it up with Tom Lehman and Jay Haas in the Bridgestone Senior Players Championship at Firestone in Akron. The Dungannon native (51) will have fond memories of his win over the famous South Course in the 2003 WGC Bridgestone Invitational.
Meanwhile, Leona Maguire returns to action for the first time since February when she warms up for next week’s AIG Women’s Open in the Aberdeen Standard Investments Ladies Scottish Open at The Renaissance Club.
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