HE’S NOT GOING to Augusta this year but Shane Lowry has still got Georgia on his mind.
Talk of azaleas and Amen Corner will be inescapable when world golf’s biggest names tee up at the Masters in a fortnight’s time.
But Lowry will be elsewhere, watching on enviously and working on his own game to make sure that he is part of the season’s first Major in 2015.
An indifferent start has seen him manage just one top 50 finish from his first five tournaments this year, and he has dropped from 85th in the world to 114th over the last three months.
He needs to break back into the top 50 by the year’s end to guarantee a Masters invite and that’s his focus now rather than wins in specific events.
“I sets short-term goals that will help me in the process of achieving my long-term goals,” he explained in Carton House yesterday where he was helping to launch a new partnership between AIG Ireland, the Golfing Union of Ireland and the Irish Ladies Golfing Union.
“One of my long-term goals is to be playing in the Masters this time next year so I am going to do everything I can in the next six to nine months to do that.
“It is top 50 in the world by Christmas, which is a decent goal of mine. I am trying to focus on the process of doing everything I can to get there.”
It is not about focusing week on week, which is what I was doing last year. I was going in to every tournament trying to finish in such and such a position to try to get to here and here. I was going out and putting myself under a lot of pressure and a lot of stress.
“I was in bad form all the time because of it. I was uptight all the time. I was anxious all the time about playing well.
“I sat down and wrote things down for myself. When you write things down it makes you see them a little bit better and a bit clearer.”
That strategic planning has helped him to relax and a week shy of his 27th birthday, he’s sees boundless possibilities for more improvement if he can maintain that focus.
“I’m getting older and more mature, obviously. [It's] not that I haven’t worked hard or done anything the last few years but I don’t think I’m even close to fulfilling my potential.
If I can get that little extra bit out of everything I think I can achieve a lot in this game. It’s quite exciting to be sitting in the position I’m in with loads of room for improvement.
That patience has stood him in good stead in a game where unlikely heroes emerge quite frequently — first-time PGA Tour winner Matt Every last weekend, for example — but wins themselves are brutally hard to come by.
Lowry knows that. After his maiden title as an amateur at the 2009 Irish Open, it took him more than three years to record his first victory as a professional, breaking that duck at the 2012 Portugal Masters.
“People don’t realise how hard it is to win. Even Irish people don’t realise how good Padraig Harrington is.
I think Padraig was every bit as good as Brian O’Driscoll is and people don’t see that.
“It is hard to win on tour and it is especially hard to do well at Major events. The standard is so good, everyone works so hard and puts so much into their game. You just have to do everything you can to give yourself the best chance of winning.”
Being part of a ‘golden generation’ of Irish golfers — with McIlroy, McDowell, Harrington and Clarke blazing an impressive Major-winning trail — can only help.
“Hanging around with the likes of Rory and Graeme and Padraig and Darren, you see what they do.
“I knock around with Graeme quite a lot and see how he goes about his business. What he has achieved in the game is phenomenal as well. He does everything he can.
“He’s what, 33 or something like that? [McDowell is 34]. I’m not saying I’m going to wait until I’m 33 to be doing what he is doing.
“I’m young and I have plenty of time. I’m just trying to keep doing what I’m doing. I really feel like I have a good system in place and I have a good team around me that will get me to where I want to be.”
