HERO CUP

January 11, 2023

Shane Lowry

Abu Dhabi Golf Club

Great Britain & Ireland

Quick Quotes

Q. A very different way to start off the calendar here at The Hero Cup. How much are you looking forward to this week?

SHANE LOWRY: Yeah, I'm looking forward to it. You know, after the last Ryder Cup, I felt like I was very disappointed, so you feel like you've got a long two years to wait till the next one.

And when this tournament was announced, I certainly felt like I want to be a part of it because I feel like obviously I want to be a part of Luke's team in Rome, and I feel like if this gives me any little bit of an edge in Rome if I'm there, I need to be here playing here.

Nice to be here. Great way to start the year and I'm looking forward to hopefully a good, competitive week.

Q. How much are you going to use this week as an opportunity to showcase your match-play credentials once again?

SHANE LOWRY: Yeah, obviously I hope I play well. I've had a few weeks off and back practicing the last week or so. It is a nice competitive week to start the year. It's good fun.

It's nice to be around the team. We've got a long year of individual golf ahead of us, so it's nice to start the year like this and hopefully I can play some good golf and whoever I pair up with, hopefully we pair up well and win some points and hopefully win this week, yeah.

Q. You mentioned you'll have friends on both sides as well but some will turn into rivals at some point this week. How will you manage those relationships, do you feel?

SHANE LOWRY: I'm okay with that. I'm pretty good at when it comes to anything, I'm probably one of the most competitive people you'll meet. So I'm okay with -- I'll make enemies for 18 holes, no problem. We're all going to be out there trying to beat each other up a little bit and be very competitive against each other. We all want to win. We are all competitive players.

We all want this a lot, even though there's a lot of Ryder Cup chat this week, I feel like as a team we really want to win this week and I'm looking forward to being part of the GB&I Team and looking forward to winning the tournament.

Q. Feels like we are going through sort of a transition period in European golf. How important are these types of events to try to blood in new members of the European family team?

SHANE LOWRY: Yeah, it definitely is a transitional period. I think it was always going to be that way if you look at The Ryder Cups over the last ten years, I think we have -- the two best players in the world are European players at the minute I feel with Jon and Rory. It's up to us, the rest of the lads to get our game to a level where we are good enough to win The Ryder Cup at the end of the year.

It's great for the younger lads that are here this week to be around the likes of Francesco and Tommy and myself and Tyrrell and lads like that and to have Paul McGinley and José Maria and Edoardo and Luke here is pretty good. I feel like we have the bonds of a very strong team come September, and I hope that we all step up when it comes to it.

And like I say, one of my main goals this year is to win The Ryder Cup and I hope to be a part of that team and hoping to there and hopefully win it back.