[ad_1]
Shane Lowry’s spot as a captain’s pick for the Ryder Cup in Rome three weeks from now was never really up in the air, but it may have seemed that way in retrospect. After captain Luke Donald made Lowry one of the six picks, many European fans questioned whether Adrian Meronk — who won the Italian Open earlier this year at Marco Simone Golf Club, where the Ryder Cup will be played — should have been selected instead.
Lowry has struggled, after all, at least by his standards. He does not have a top 10 anywhere in the world since February, although he does have five top 20s in his last nine events, and he has been the second-worst European on the team over the last three months from a strokes-gained standpoint. Still, he brings a Justin Thomas-like set of intangibles to the table that will be invaluable for a European squad looking to rebound from a 19-9 blowout at Whistling Straits in 2021.
“There’s no doubt that Shane is a big-time player who likes the big occasions, the majors,” Padraig Harrington, Lowry’s captain in 2021, said this week. “At the Ryder Cup he was very, very comfortable. Wasn’t like a rookie at all in the sense he just knows the bigger, pressure-filled occasions.
“It’s strange seeing some of the part-time people who aren’t in the know saying maybe somebody else should have gotten picked, and they might have named Shane,” Harrington continued. “I’m going, ‘It’s not even close.’ Shane is, when it comes to … if we were playing a small tournament in the middle of nowhere, maybe Shane wouldn’t be the right pick, but when it comes to the Ryder Cup, I definitely can trust in him.
“He is very good with the rest of the team. There’s no doubt about it. He can partner up. He can play foursomes and four-ball. In order to play foursomes and four-ball, you need to be a good ball striker, and that’s what Shane is. That versatility is very important for Luke, to have somebody who…
[ad_2]
Source : cbssports
