Needs must, and although Shane Lowry didn’t originally intend to play in this week’s Wyndham Championship in North Carolina, the final regular season event on the PGA Tour before the elite top-70 players move on to the lucrative FedEx Cup playoffs, his position of being on the outside looking in entailed a U-turn.
So it is that Lowry – who had a family holiday last week in Portugal following on from his disappointing missed cut in the Open at Royal Liverpool – returns to tournament duty a week earlier than planned as he tries to force his way into the FedEx Cup playoffs.
In past years, the top-125 players moved on to the playoffs with fields reduced in size from one tournament to the next. This year, the parameters have changed. Instead of 125, only 70 players get to compete in the St Jude Classic and then only 50 in the BMW Championship. And the Tour Championship will feature the top-30.
As it is, Lowry is in 76th place on the FedEx Cup standings and consequently would need a solid week at the Wyndham if he is to extend his playing season stateside. At a minimum, Lowry would need a two-way tie for 23rd to get inside that magic number of 70 on the season’s standings.
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Lowry is not the only notable player in a precarious position. Justin Thomas (79th), Adam Scott (81st) and Gary Woodland (97th) are also trying to play their way into the playoffs.
The Wyndham is the last chance saloon effectively and Lowry is the only Irish player competing, with both Rory McIlroy and Séamus Power comfortably inside those heading into the playoffs.
Pádraig Harrington will take a well-earned break after a hectic period which included battling tough conditions in successive weeks at the Scottish Open, the Open and the Senior Open where he lost in a playoff to Alex Cejka at Royal Porthcawl.
The 51-year-old Dubliner lamented a poor start to his bid for the Senior Open and put some of his play down to “tiredness”.
“What’s annoying is I seem to only play well when there’s an urgency. I finished up [the] tournament tied and, by God, will I sit back and go, ‘you know, the first three days, I left half a dozen shots a day out of the golf course’ ... I chipped poorly, just haven’t been myself,” said Harrington, who has a couple of weeks off before returning to action at the Czech Open.
Harrington has made the decision to focus on the DP World Tour in the coming months, rather than return stateside to play on the Champions Tour. His upcoming schedule includes the Czech Open and the Omega European Masters (which also marks the end of the Ryder Cup automatic qualifying campaign) ahead of the Horizon Irish Open at The K Club and then the BMW PGA Championship at Wentworth.
Meanwhile, Jonathan Caldwell claimed the Christy O’Connor Jnr Trophy as leading Irish player in the Irish Challenge at Headfort Golf Club, which also earned him an invitation to next month’s Horizon Irish Open.
Caldwell will look to bring that momentum on to this week’s Challenge Tour stop, the British Challenge at St Mellion in Cornwall. Caldwell is one of eight Irishmen – along with Conor Purcell, Niall Kearney, Dermot McElroy, Stuart Grehan, Ronan Mullarney, Conor O’Rourke and Cameron Raymond – in the field.
Leona Maguire has opted to skip this week’s Scottish Open – a co-sanctioned LPGA Tour and LET event – ahead of next week’s AIG Women’s Open. Stephanie Meadow is the lone Irish player in the field for this week’s event at Dundonald Links.
