Shane Lowry believes winning Olympic gold will make up for missing out on a second Open title, as Ireland team-mate Rory McIlroy targets his biggest win for a decade.
Lowry held a two-shot halfway lead at Royal Troon, where McIlroy missed the cut, but struggled to a third round of 77 and eventually finished sixth, five shots behind Olympic champion Xander Schauffele.
“I felt I had a good chance to win The Open a couple of weeks ago and I was really disappointed to not give it a better go on Saturday and Sunday,” said Lowry, who described being one of Ireland’s flag bearers at the opening ceremony as an “amazing experience”.
“Straightaway after that I sort of felt like I have a chance to redeem myself here in a couple of weeks.
“If you look at the media and what it was like back home yesterday when Mona (McSharry) won that bronze medal (in the 100m breaststroke), I think if I was to win a gold medal and bring it back to Ireland, yeah, it would be pretty cool.”
McIlroy’s bid to win a fifth major title will stretch into another decade after he suffered his second worst Open performance at Troon, the 35-year-old carding rounds of 78 and 75 to finish 11 over par, five weeks after his heartbreaking loss in the US Open.
Asked what a gold medal would do for his year, McIlroy said: “It’s well documented that I haven’t won one of the big four in 10 years. It would probably be one of, if not the biggest [win] in my career for the last 10 years.
“The last time you guys (the media) saw me, I didn’t give a very good account of myself at Troon. I want to make sure I’m right where I need to be teeing off on Thursday.
“Again I’ve been asked this question a lot, where would an Olympic medal sit in sort of the hierarchy of my career achievements? It’s something I probably won’t be able to answer until when everything is said and done.
“I don’t know if anything will be able to sit alongside the majors. We have our four events a year that are the gold standard. But I think this is going to be, in time, right up there amongst that.”
McIlroy and Lowry both welcomed the possibility of a team format, mixed or otherwise, being introduced in Los Angeles in 2028 and also dismissed the suggestion that this week’s competition at Le Golf National has been diminished by the absence of US Open champion Bryson DeChambeau.
All four of the American team – Schauffele, Scottie Scheffler, Collin Morikawa and Wyndham Clark – are ranked inside the world’s top six, with DeChambeau ninth despite only being able to earn ranking points from the majors as LIV Golf events cannot award them.
Asked if the world rankings was the best way to determine Olympic qualifying, McIlroy said: “I don’t think there’s any other way to do it because it’s hard to compare the golf that they play (on LIV) to the golf that we play.
“That’s the reason they didn’t get world ranking points, right.
“If you want to qualify for the Olympics, you knew what you had to do. Just like if you wanted to qualify for the Ryder Cup, you knew what you had to do. They were very aware of the decision they made when they did.”
McIlroy will play alongside Ryder Cup team-mate Ludvig Aberg and world number one Scheffler for the first two days, while Lowry has been drawn with Korea’s Byeong Hun An and Canada’s Nick Taylor.
France’s Victor Perez has been given the honour of hitting the opening shot at 0900 local time (0800BST).