Open Review
Our editor-at-large looks back on The Open’s triumphant return to Royal Portrush and Shane Lowry’s emphatic victory
The last hour was a procession. Not quite Caesar returning to Rome in triumph but not far off it as Shane Lowry and his caddie made their calm, considered way towards the merry climax to this 148th Open Championship.
Wrapped in a six-shot lead, the 18th hole, usually a roaring lion of a challenge, was no more than a pussycat obstacle, a tiny hurdle for them to step over and into the old game’s history. Some win, some week, some performance by a golfer few fancied to do anything other than turn up as Royal Portrush revealed its startling beauty to an impressed world.
On TV, Paul Mcginley pressed the case for Lowry’s consideration but the rest of us could see little or no reason why this man from south of the border should be a serious contender for this glittering title. For sure, he always has been a golfer capable of terrific stuff but too often he has been found wanting – an occasional, significant force but not a consistent one.
His last four Opens were spent watching the weekend action back home on television and though he arrived in Portrush a revitalised golfer over the last 12 months, it remained a stretch to pick him out when considering a few quid on this man or that. As the bookies installed Rory Mcilroy as favourite, Lowry was out there at 100/1. There were few takers although, hopefully, the prescient Mcginley followed his instinct and enjoyed a decent-sized punt.
Ah yes, Wee Rory. Several weeks ago I suggested in these pages that the frenzied support for Northern Ireland’s sporting son would either propel him into contention or it would weigh on him, distract him, over-excite him. Sadly, it was the latter, his opening round a personal disaster from start to finish.
His recovery next day only served to show what might have been. It also further exposed Rory’s frailty in the big ones, a psychological hiccup that is fast turning into a virus for such a talented player. A big disappointment but, more importantly, a serious concern as he contemplates life, the universe and golf over the next nine months and, of course, the 2020 Masters.
Disappointing, too, for Tiger Woods. This was the same Tiger who stumbled through the Ryder Cup last year. He looked tired, appeared disconnected with where he was and what he was trying to do, and although he tried to give 100 per cent – as he always has – he was capable of delivering only 50 per cent of what he possesses.
He admits his body is suffering, that anything other than warm, benign conditions makes him ache. Listening to him explain this in Portrush, looking into his eyes, I couldn’t help but arrive at the conclusion that here was a man no longer contemplating a new start as he did immediately after Augusta, but a bloke who fears that, actually, this is the beginning of the end.
Portrush takes centre stage
With Woods and Mcilroy absent for the weekend, a big slice of the general public interest in this Open was diluted. There was still much to watch, much to admire as well as a course that lived up to all the pre-event hype. I always suspected that the Dunluce Links would be the star of the show no matter who won and so it proved, at least it did in my house. It looked great, played great and, especially in Lowry’s case, encouraged simply wonderful golf from those capable of such a thing.
It was the same with this little seaside town. A population of fewer than 7,000 souls was multiplied many times over during the week
and everyone seemed to be having a good time. The locals were welcoming, friendly and geared up to deliver a pint on time, a plate of decent food or merely a warm smile on top of a “how about you?”. Unused to any kind of spotlight, they took to hosting this Open with a natural grace and easy anticipation. There was a lot of merry drinking but no problems as far as I could see. Alongside St Andrews, Portrush offered a rare sense of town and game united, a place to be and a place to play. They deserve another Open before the memory dims, certainly within the next half dozen years.
What is beyond dispute is the quality of golf offered by Lowry. You’ll know by now that he changed caddies shortly after missing the cut at Carnoustie and sitting in his car weeping at his own ineptitude. In came Brian ‘Bo’ Martin, an experienced Northern Irishman who complemented Lowry’s gingery beard with his own grey version so that together they looked like part of a Chieftains tribute act. Remember The Chieftains? Either that or a couple of hairy blokes on their way to a real ale festival as an old pal in the media centre suggested.
Whatever the truth of those suggestions, there is no gainsaying the fact that Martin has played a central role in Lowry’s rediscovery of the golfer he originally promised to be when winning a rain-soaked Irish Open as an amateur in 2009. I was there that year and recall Mcilroy, already two years a pro but still impossibly young-looking, hanging around in the press tent to see if his pal won and to join in the congratulations. Of course, he didn’t hang around at Portrush to see what happened this time which, with hindsight, is a pity. Older but not necessarily wiser.
It was the caddie who helped keep Lowry on the straight and narrow as they played that stoic final round through a tempest. It was Bo who urged his player to “stay with me” as the fans yelled their
“I always suspected that the Dunluce Links would be the star of the show”
support and prematurely celebrated what they believed was a certain victory. Lowry admitted he was struggling to stay in the moment and was himself anticipating a success that could have been wrecked with just a couple of poor shots and an unlucky bounce on this beauty of a beast of a course.
The caddie’s wise words worked. This was my 40-something’th Open and I cannot recall a calmer or more focused final round or, indeed, a player who kept his hands in his pockets more when not swinging a club. Viewed in retrospect, Lowry’s demeanour was more in keeping with a practice round on a Tuesday than a Sunday finale that could, and has, changed his life as well as his fortune.
In truth, this victory was established the day before when, through a benign Saturday afternoon, Lowry played his best golf of the year for a course-record 63. It was memorable not just for the score but for the manner of it and the quiet, studied accuracy of his play, especially the softness of his hands when it came to pitching and chipping to holes set here and there on upturned greens that offered small, flat areas of safety amid acres of tumbling danger.
Rising to the occasion
It was a masterclass by a man whose sureness and subtlety of touch and imagination came together as never before in the biggest week of his life. Eight birdies, no bogeys is a ridiculously excellent return and one that offered a four-shot barricade against the field. Behind him lurked Tommy Fleetwood and Lee Westwood, Brooks Koepka and Justin Rose. Major men and quite capable of eating into that lead.
Except they didn’t. Not ever, not really. If Fleetwood, a golfer whose fast-snapping neck at impact causes
“He is no gated-community superstar, no self-regarding pain in the wotsit. He is a man who likes a pint with his pals”
me to worry a bit, had holed his birdie putt on the 1st on Sunday and if a vaguely floundering Lowry had misjudged his eight-footer for bogey on the same hole, the lead would have been one. Ifs, buts and maybes but it didn’t happen and it turned out to be the most significant moment of this final round, Lowry’s composure regained, his faith in the thought that this was his turn, his moment, his glorious week, restored and never really threatened again.
Fleetwood secured second and so offered further evidence that one day he might win one of these, while nice guy Tony Finau slipped into third, with Westwood and Koepka tied fourth, the Englishman securing an invitation to next year’s Masters, a success that, at 46, made him very pleased indeed.
For Koepka, it was a disappointment, his putting a tad off-key and his demeanour rather sullen, a state of mind not helped by the appalling self-absorption and slowness of his Sunday playing partner JB Holmes, who looks like an off-duty brickie and plays as though permanently caught in a slo-mo repeat. Rose, meanwhile, had one of his worst days, dropping eight shots to par and spiralling down the leaderboard like a shirt hung out to dry in a hurricane.
High praise, though, for Scotland’s Robert Macintyre. In his first season on the European Tour and in his first Open, Macintyre played wonderfully to secure sixth spot alongside Tyrrell Hatton, Danny Willett and Rickie Fowler. Even higher praise for the young Scot’s cojones in admonishing Kyle Stanley for not shouting “fore”. The American was clearly irritated by this newcomer having a go at him but should have accepted the criticism, apologised and moved on promising to yell a warning in future. Instead he tried to defend the indefensible and made himself look an even bigger prat.
Popular with his peers
All, in its own way, good fun but then the whole week was fun even if the end lacked essential drama. Instead, it offered something of a parade for Lowry in place of the preferred close-range battle over the closing holes of any Open Championship, when nerve-endings are exposed and the momentum swings this way and that.
Still, you can’t have everything and it’s not his fault that he was too good for the rest, a fact recognised by a posse of players who took to the Twittersphere to ladle on their
appreciation of a fellow pro reaching up to caress the outer edges of this contrary game’s most excellent fringes. Whether or not he can do it again remains to be seen. He’ll want to, of course, but I doubt that it will hurt him much if this outrageous Portrush caper turns out to be the first and the last of his Major victories. He is, after all, the man who describes himself as a full-time husband and father and a part-time golfer.
He has perspective and given this game’s tendency to kick hard at a man when he is at his highest and strongest, it is a philosophy on life that augurs well for the future. He is no gated-community superstar, no self-regarding pain in the wotsit. He’s a man who likes a pint with his pals and a game of golf at his modest club, Esker Hills, that is less than three decades old and that is placed in the centre of County Offaly that, in turn, is set in the very middle of Ireland. He is, in other words, Offaly nice (sorry, I couldn’t resist it) and grounded. He won’t change.
It was easy to sense this decency on top of an understated and smiley approach to things as he meandered on to that final green, a man from the south of Ireland, helped over the line by a man from the north before the pair embraced and in doing so, set a pleasing template for how much my old homeland has changed for the better this century. Somehow Ireland had produced a champion to celebrate the return of The Open to the island after a long and understandable absence.
For those of us, like me, with real ties to the place it was emotional; for the rest of you it should have carried some real significance beyond the mere playing of a daft game. Up in the stands, behind the ropes, some fans raised the Republic’s Tricolour in celebration. No one minded although to have done so not too long ago would have been to risk limb, if not life. Things, thankfully, have moved on.
The other thought is that there was no need for any flags to be raised. This wasn’t a victory for the south or the north – this was a triumph for Ireland. Triumph in the staging, the celebration and, finally, in the nature and background of the champion golfer.
Where was he from? Shane Lowry is from Ireland and as far as golf is concerned, that is all you need to know. Somewhere, those dragons were roaring.
Happy days, very happy days. Well done, your man!