Shane Lowry comfortably made the PGA Tour’s season-ending Tour Championship for only the second time in his career after a week-best three-under-par 67 in the final day of the BMW Championship.
Lowry had four birdies and a bogey as he finally caught fire with the putter, topping strokes gained stats on the green while holing 110 feet worth of putts. It moved him into the top 25 for the tournament and 24th in the FedEx Cup standings, with the top 30 progressing to East Lake.
He will be joined there by Rory McIlroy, who started the FedEx Cup playoffs in second place and heads to the Tour Championship in the same position despite skipping last week and having an mixed week here.
The Northern Irishman’s final round had seemingly been derailed by back-to-back double bogeys on the fifth and sixth holes, but he responded well on the way in with five birdies from the ninth hole for a level-par round of 70 and three under for the tournament.
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There were flashes of quality for McIlroy, including a superb 300-yard 3-wood over water to drive the short par 4 11th, enough to give him optimism for East Lake, a course where he has won the Tour Championship three times.
“I wasn’t expecting much to be in contention [after three weeks off], but there were glimmers of really good stuff in there this week,” McIlroy said. “As I said I found a bit of a groove over those last nine holes. It is certainly something to build off going into the Tour Championship next week.”
Lowry did not do enough to push his way into the automatic places for the European Ryder Cup team, where Rasmus Højgaard looked to be cruising to a place and a second win at the Danish Golf Championship in three years before he let a four-shot lead slip to Marco Penge on the DP World Tour.
The 24-year-old would have got into the automatic qualification spots with a victory at Furesø Golfklub, but was left to rue errors and inspired play by Penge, who sealed his second DP World Tour win of the season.
The Englishman shot a four-under-par 67 which included birdies on his final two holes to beat Højgaard by a shot on 16 under. Højgaard managed to get an impressive eagle on the par 5 18th to force Penge to hole a three-footer for victory, but it was too little too late for the Dane.
Højgaard began the round with a one-shot lead over Penge and started his round in inspired form with an eagle on the par 5 third after an approach to three feet and followed it up with birdies at the fourth and sixth holes. Then the wheels came off with three bogeys and a double bogey at the par 3 ninth where he failed to make the green from a greenside bunker and took three more to get home.
Penge left the door ajar with his only bogey of the day at the 16th, but responded with a brilliant approach to two feet for birdie at the penultimate hole to restore his two-shot advantage heading into the 72nd hole.
“I’ve been playing so well this year,” Penge said. “You know, coming back from my time off, to have won so soon [after that] and to achieve what I’ve achieved since I won.
“My main goal after I won was to not get complacent and drop off basically. My team have been a massive support for me, my family, everyone involved really.
“It’s made me keep striving for more and this is amazing. And Rasmus, he’s some player, to hit the shot he hit into the last and make eagle and basically make me have to win it was unbelievable.”
Penge has moved up to 14th in Ryder Cup rankings after an impressive year on the DP World Tour which includes a win in China and a tied second-place finish at the Scottish Open. Another win next week at the British Masters, the final qualifying event, would give Ryder Cup captain Luke Donald something to think about. Højgaard will get another chance to make the team automatically at The Belfry.
In Irish amateur golf, Stuart Grehan made history as he claimed the AIG Irish Amateur Close Championship in Wesport.
The County Louth golfer followed in the footsteps of Peter O’Keeffe (2021) and Pádraig Harrington (1995) in completing the Irish Amateur Open-Irish Close double.
