World number one Scottie Scheffler continued his dominant season in the PGA Tour to scoop the $25 million payday for topping the FedEx Cup in winning the Tour Championship at East Lake in Atlanta, but it also proved to be a profitable enterprise for both Shane Lowry and Rory McIlroy.
Lowry, making his debut in the event, shot a final round 68 to join McIlroy, a three-time FedEx Cup champion who closed with a 66, on 16-under-par 271 in tied-ninth which netted the two Irishmen $1,608,333 paydays each. It represented a best-ever order of merit finish for Lowry stateside.
McIlroy will soon shift his attention to next week’s Amgen Irish Open at Royal County Down and a number of other events on the DP World Tour, but admitted he would need to reassess his scheduling for 2025: “It’s been a long season, and I’m going to just have to think about trying to build in a few extra breaks here and there next year and going forward because I felt like I hit a bit of a wall sort of post-US Open, and still feel a little bit of that hangover,” he said.
McIlroy’s immediate plans include a run of events in Europe – Irish Open followed by the BMW PGA at Wentworth and the Alfred Dunhill Links – in seeking to clock up early Ryder Cup qualifying points: “We’re all trying to get points on the board early to make sure that we don’t have to rely on a pick. I think that’s obviously the big thing.”
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Sara Byrne finished her amateur career with an unbeaten contribution as Great Britain and Ireland defeated the United States 10½-9½ in the 43rd edition of the Curtis Cup at Sunningdale in England, their first win over the Americans since the 2016 match at Dún Laoghaire.
There were three Irish players on the winning team – Byrne, Áine Donegan and Beth Coulter – with captain Catriona Matthew hailing the “fantastic team”, claiming: “They really dug in every day and in every session.”
Byrne, who graduated from the University of Miami earlier this year but stayed on as an amateur to play Curtis Cup, was the only unbeaten player and received some advice from Solheim Cup star Leona Maguire as the Cork woman moves on to the professional game: “She’s going to have a lot of people in her ear, I’m sure. Her game is obviously in very good shape. My advice? Surround yourself with good people, I think. Hopefully she has a good team around her. I don’t know Sara very well but she’s come through the collegiate ranks and had a strong team surrounding her in Miami so she’ll have a little bit of replacing and replicating to do but as long as she surrounds herself with good people, she has a great attitude, I think she’ll be fine,” said Maguire, who played in three Curtis Cups (winning two) before moving into the professional ranks.
Byrne, 23, is set to turn professional on Wednesday and will make her debut in the Rose Ladies Open on the LET Access Tour this week, a tournament won last year by Switzerland’s Chiara Tamburlini who, in her rookie season, has moved to the top of the LET order of merit.
Maguire, for her own part, will have a well earned week’s rest after completing a four-week stretch that started with the Olympics and finished with a tied-15th finish in the KPMG Women’s Irish Open at Carton House Fairmont in Maynooth, where England’s Annabel Dimmock defeated Pauline Roussin Bouchard, of France, at the second playoff hole to secure a second LET title.
Although there has been no confirmation as yet, it is expected the tournament next year will shift in the calendar – possibly to the week before the Evian (a Major) in June – with a likely return to Carton House where there was an attendance of close to 40,000 through the event.
“I think you see the progress it’s made in the last few years. It seems to be getting bigger and bigger. Irish sport is in a great place right now, it was fantastic to see the 13 girls in the field this week and not just golf, all the sports,” said Maguire, adding: “You see it with the women’s soccer team, you see it with athletics, there is quite a buzz about women’s sport in this country right now which is fantastic. There’s a long way to go, obviously, but we’re moving in the right direction, which is really nice.”
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