Shane Lowry was jumping for joy for two different reasons. One for holing a putt with his driver during a practice round ahead of the Abu Dhabi HSBC Championship and two because his golf clubs finally arrived on site on Wednesday morning.
Lowry had been practicing with a makeshift set but was relieved to find out his sticks had eventually made the journey from Florida to Yas Links for the penultimate event of the DP World Tour season as he searches for his first individual win since the 2022 BMW PGA Championship.
“Yeah, my clubs were delivered this morning. I was panicking yesterday. I was trying to get a makeup set built. All is good now, and I had my own set for the Pro-Am today and ready to go,” said the world number 28.
Lowry returns to competitive action after a well earned rest following a stretch of ten events in twelve weeks which saw him reel off seven top-13 finishes including 6th at the Open and 8th at the Tour Championship.
“I’ve had a few weeks off. It’s nice to come back and always nice to come back to the Middle East here and a place where I’ve played well and had some success. It’s part of the world I love having to play golf and having to be here.”
One of Lowry’s biggest wins came in Abu Dhabi back in 2019 when he won the HSBC Championship at the nearby Abu Dhabi Golf Club but the Offaly man also has a good record at Yas Links with finishes of 12th and 28th in his last two starts here where good starts fizzled out over the weekend.
“Yeah, the two are obviously very different venues. Abu Dhabi Golf Club was brilliant and I had a lot of great success there and won that tournament. I played here the last two times, I’ve played pretty well here,” said Lowry.
“I didn’t finish the tournament off as well as what I would have liked but never been in the final group both Sundays in those two years. So if I can do something similar to that this year and finish the tournament off better, you never know.
“But it’s a great venue, the weather is obviously pretty hot here this week, different in January, but the course is in of good condition as I’ve seen a golf course and it should be a great week.”
The test that Yas Links provides is very weather dependent. If the wind blows then a championship similar to the 2022 edition where Thomas Pieters won on ten-under could be in store but if benign conditions greet the players then the field might have to beat the 18-under that saw Victor Perez win this title last season.
“To be honest, it’s one of these courses where no wind, it plays pretty easy. And you get a five- to ten-mile-an-hour wind, and it can make it a little more difficult. It probably does need a little bit of wind to test the golfers a little bit. But it is what it is. We take the conditions we get. It will cool you off a little bit. That will be nice,” Lowry explained.
Lowry tees off in the final group on Thursday at 11.50 local time alongside Ryder Cup teammates Tommy Fleetwood and Robert MacIntyre.