BMW PGA CHAMPIONSHIP

September 11, 2022

Shane Lowry

Wentworth Golf Club

Press Conference

NEIL AHERN: Ladies and gentlemen, I am delighted to welcome to the media center the 2022 BMW PGA Championship winner, Shane Lowry.

Shane, you've spoken on many occasions in the past about how special this tournament is to you, and you've come close on a few occasions, so just explain your emotions right now.

SHANE LOWRY: Yeah, I'm obviously pretty happy. I was going out there today just giving it my best shot like I do every day and you know what you're going to get. So I am so happy; it's so hard to win on this tour, any tour. You have some of the best players in the world trying to chase you down, and I thought about it today but I felt like my game has been good enough all year to win, and I just felt like I haven't had the breaks that I needed to win tournaments.

I'm just very thankful and very grateful that I got to win this, and what a tournament to win, as well. Seems like I don't like to do it small when I do it, so it's nice to have this on my resumé as well.

NEIL AHERN: Describe your emotions in the recorder's hut.

SHANE LOWRY: Yeah, because you're in control of yourself out there but then you go in there, and I said to Bo, I said going down 18, Rory is probably going to birdie the last two. I heard a roar and thought he had birdied 17. But it didn't change what I was going. I just wanted to hit the best shot I could, and I stood up and I hit one of the best five irons I could hit. Yeah, I went up there and I seen he didn't birdie 17 and I seen, I thought, you know, I obviously walking four or five feet past and trying to drop it in, and yeah, just left it short. But I don't know how -- to be honest, it's one of those, no doubt about it, I wanted him to miss. He hit a great putt. I thought he left it short to be honest, and then it just kept going and going and somehow missed right but I certainly would not fancy going out in a playoff against him. I was laying good golf but I'm happy that I'm sitting here.

Q. Every round like that, there's always a moment or maybe two moments where it could have gone either way. Was it something like that for you today?

SHANE LOWRY: Don't even remember to be honest. I holed a great putt for par on the first. I hit a poor tee shot off 1 and holed a great putt for par. Then I was fairly good from there on in. I did what I needed to do. I birdied the holes I needed to birdie. Hit a great putt on 8, birdied 10, just missed on 11. So doing the right things and I just was doing the right things all day and I was doing the right things all week. There was only less than a handful of times where I was actually out of position the whole week, which is, you know, a great way to play golf around Wentworth. Felt like my game was so solid that I wasn't -- my bad shots were okay. Only one stage I can remember the whole week where I was out of position and I managed to get that up-and-down on the 5th in the first round. Other than that, it was fairly straightforward.

It comes into your head -- it came into my head walking from 17 green, it would be a disaster to make my first bogey. But a nice way to win a tournament. Obviously it was soft this week and was certainly gettable and not much wind but it's still a tricky golf course.

Q. You've already said, this was a win for the good guys. How important was it that a LIV player didn't win, you haven't been as vocal as Rory but you've said what you want on the subject. How important is that to you?

SHANE LOWRY: Yeah, I made my feelings known at the start of the week. I never really commented on it too much because I never really got asked because I'm not in front of the media as much as Rory is. Everyone knows how I feel.

Yeah, certainly that was a little bit of probably extra motivation out there today. I saw a few lads make a bit of a run and I felt like I was going to do my best to make sure that it wasn't one of them and happy it was me.

Q. And Ryder Cup qualification?

SHANE LOWRY: This is a great start. Obviously I want it make the team and I want to make it easy for Luke. I feel like I can be a good addition to the team and we can go to Rome and challenge and win that Ryder Cup back. So yeah, I'm very excited that this is the start of the points and that I've made some good points this week and I'm hoping in the next few months to make the team automatically and go to Rome in whatever it is, 12 months.

I do think we do have a really good core of good players in Europe right now, and I just think it would be great to see a couple of the younger lads stand up over the next 12 months and make the team and then we go to Rome all guns blazing and win the Cup back.

Q. What have been the emotions with the near misses, has it been frustration or just telling yourself you need to be patient?

SHANE LOWRY: Yeah, I think definitely been telling myself this year I need to be patient, and look, COVID year 2020 was a bit weird, wasn't it. So you kind of mark that one off and then 2021 I thought was a pretty decent year. Felt like I played some good golf and didn't win but was very solid. Had some good chances to win this year on the PGA TOUR, and both times I didn't get over the line. They sting a little bit.

I think if I didn't get over line today, maybe I do go back and start asking questions about what I need to do differently or what needs to change because yes, my golf is good but if you're not knocking off the wins and you're playing well, you might have to ask questions. I'm quite pleased for that; that I got over line today. But I felt like I played the final round today and maybe different than I played the other rounds this year.

I said to Neil this morning, I just need to allow myself to play golf. I'm playing the best golf of my life. I just need to allow myself to hit the shots and go for the shots I want to go for, less being tentative just go for it and grab the bull by the horns and go win the tournament, as opposed to waiting for manage to happen to you.

Q. Banging your head against the door of the win, what strategies do you go through?

SHANE LOWRY: I say it all the time, you spend your life and your career getting up early every day, working your nuts off to get in these positions and when you get in these positions, it's quite uncomfortable. It's not the nicest place in the world because he don't want to mess it up and be sitting in your hotel room having thrown away the tournament and it's not a nice place to be. Obviously it's easy to say that sitting here with this but I did enjoy being out there in the hunt. Down the stretch against Jon Rahm and Rory, there's no other place I'd rather be.

Q. Just wondering and I appreciate the Queen is not Queen of the Republic of Ireland but such an emotional and difficult week for so many people. Can you talk about the back drop and how inspiring that was?

SHANE LOWRY: I felt like that was a big decision to be made on Friday, whether to go ahead or not. I felt like the right thing to do was go ahead and just have a celebration of her life this weekend as opposed to, you know, sitting around and moping about it. I think that's what you'd want it do, especially when a person is old, you want to celebrate their life, as opposed to anything else.

She's obviously an incredible woman and done great things. The whole world is saddened by her loss but great to see the crowds come out yesterday and today. I felt like it was a great way to give a send-off. I know it might not mean much to anyone but I thought that way.

Q. Can you just describe 18, the drive, and I think you said it was a 5-iron, one of the best shots you've ever hit?

SHANE LOWRY: Yeah, I hate that tee shot, I really do. I've been in those trees on the right a few times. Scar tissue comes back to haunt you when you're there. I just pushed my drive a little bit but that's perfect. I knew I hit it well and I knew it was going to be down and it was going to be a 5- or 6-iron to the green and I got down to like 189 yards to the front, 217 to the pin, which was like a really -- like I hit my 5-iron 210. It's one of those, between 4- and 5-iron, and I'm just going to stand up and hit the 5-iron as good as I can, end up on the right side of the green and I actually pulled it a little bit perfectly and the moment I hit it, I knew it was perfect. To be honest I thought it was going to be closer to the green. It's quite quick. I thought it was going to release a little bit more. Absolutely chuffed where it ended up to be honest.

Just tried to drop it in the front door quick there, just left it on the lip. It was a nice way to finish.

Q. You've been with Neil for a long time. Talk about the longevity and what the secret as been between the two of you.

SHANE LOWRY: I have known Neil for over 18 years. It's been a long kind of relationship. We're very close and it's much more of a golf or business working relationship. We are very friendly. He probably knows more about me than anybody else. Any time I'm struggling, he knows what I'm doing to get me back.

I feel like out on tour, it's easy to get distracted by coaches and everything, what everyone else is doing. I feel like if you're good enough to get on tour and you own yourself on do yourself and commit to that, I feel you'll get further than chopping and changing from coach to coach trying to get better.

I feel like, I always say, you very rarely see players under-coached. You see a lot of players being over-coached. Yeah, we keep it simple and have our own way to do it.

NEIL AHERN: Thank you very much, Shane.