Shane Lowry happy to 'shut up' Ryder Cup snipers as Rome rough deemed 'brutal'

Shane Lowry reckons he “shut up” people questioning his Ryder Cup pick before discovering the rough in Rome is “pretty brutal” on a spying mission with his team-mates on Monday.

Defending champion Shane Lowryspeaks in a press conference prior to the BMW PGA Championship at Wentworth. Picture: Richard Heathcote/Getty Images.

The Irishman, who made his debut against the Americans at Whistling Straits in 2021, was reckoned by some to have been fortunate to be handed a pick by European captain Luke Donald after failing to record a top-ten finish on either the DP World Tour or PGA Tour since February.

Though insisting he felt he didn’t have anything to prove, it was timely, nonetheless, when the 2019 Open champion ended up in a share of joint-third behind Swede Vincent Norrman in the Horizon Irish Open at The K Club last weekend.

On the back of that effort, Lowry is now heading into a title defence in this week’s BMW PGA Championship at Wentworth feeling bullish about his appearance in the 44th edition of the Ryder Cup on the outskirts of the Italian capital.

“I know there was a little bit about that last week and me…and I need to be careful here,” said Lowry of his selection having been questioned as Pole Adrian Meronk, a three-time winner in the last 16 months and sitting third behind Rory McIlroy and Jon Rahm in the Race to Dubai, missed out.

“Didn't sit very well with me, to be honest. Yes, my results have not been amazing this year, but I feel if you purely go down to statistics and go down to the 12 best players in Europe, I'm one of them. And I feel like I deserve my place on the team.

“I didn't feel like I had to go out and prove anything to anyone last week. If I shut a few people up, so be it, but I wasn't trying to do that last week. This week is the same. I'm trying to win the tournament here this week. I know I deserve to be on that team and I know I'll be good in Rome in a couple weeks.”

Both teams have paid visits to the Ryder Cup course in the past few days and lost balls were a topic of conversation on the range at Wentworth as the European players and caddies arrived back from their trip to Rome.

“It's pretty brutal in spots,” admitted Lowry, who played a practice round with Bob MacIntyre, Sepp Straka and Justin Rose. “But it's no different to what you might see at the US Open or something like that. If you go a decent bit off the fairways, that's going to get very interesting. I only lost one, so I was pretty happy with myself. But one group lost a few.

“Look, like the Americans do when they get their home Ryder Cup and set up the golf course to suit them, I think the [European] vice captains are trying to set up the golf course to suit us.”

It was even suggested that the rough might need to be thinned out before the contest on 29 September-1 October. Responding to that possibility, Lowry said: “Look, the rough is pretty thick, but you need to hit fairways and you need to hit greens, and you need to stay in the hole and that's the way we like it.”