Shane Lowry tired of talking about Portrush pints six years later
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PORTRUSH, Northern Ireland — Six years after winning The Open at Royal Portrush, people are still talking about the party Shane Lowry threw for himself.
“Interesting first question, isn’t it? Here to talk about golf and all anyone wants to talk about is drinking,” Lowry said on Monday when the first question of the day focused on frothy pints instead of Claret Jugs.
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Shane Lowry tired of talking about Portrush pints six years later Back to video
“Yeah, I celebrated pretty well,” he said of his well-documented party in 2019. “Golf is a funny game like where you lose a lot more than you win and I’ve always been a firm believer that when you win, you need to try and celebrate those victories. So I did that that night.”
The Irishman Lowry has been immortalized on a mural here in Portrush as he arrives looking to win his second major championship. Six years ago, Lowry’s win delighted the Northern Irish crowd who were hosting the Open for the first time in nearly 70 years. Images of the burly golfer singing in the pub hours later while still wearing his golf shoes became instant legend.
But these days, Lowry hinted that he’s a slightly different man.
“Look, I’ll let people believe what they want to believe and I kind of do my own thing,” he said. “The people close to me know what I’m like.
“Don’t get me wrong, I do enjoy it from time to time, but I know when I need to put my head down and work. I know when I need to do that. You can’t be at the top level of any sport if you’re not applying yourself well and I feel like I do it.”
Lowry said he feels he’s a better golfer these days than he was in 2019 and, in the years since winning the Claret Jug, he has become closer to Rory McIlroy, who he credits for pushing him daily.
“We spend a lot of time together,” Lowry said. “Where we live in Florida, there’s a lot of players that live there, and you go up to the range and there’s never a day that goes by where you get there and some of the top players in the world are not there.
“So you’re like, ‘well, if all these guys are here, we need to be doing it as well.'”
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