Gavin Cooney reports from Augusta National Golf Club

THIS IS SHANE Lowry’s eleventh trip down Magnolia Lane and the previous 10 are all linked by the same sentiment on the way back out.

“This is my eleventh time and each time I’ve driven out Magnolia Lane – even the year I finished third – I drove out here pretty miserable”, says Lowry. “I’ve never driven out here on a Sunday happy with myself.”

Lowry’s happiness for Rory McIlroy only slightly leavened the bitter disappointment of last year, in which he started the final round in a tie for sixth and within sight of the lead, only to shoot 81 and slide all the way down to a tie for 42nd place, his second-worst finish across the seven Masters tournaments of which he has made the cut. His best finish remains his tie for third place in 2022. 

Perhaps this year will bring a change of feeling. If it is to be different, Lowry will have changed it all from a standing start. 

He carries little momentum from a painful year thus far, in which he has twice seen opportunities to win slip through his fingers: first at the Dubai Invitational at the start of the year and then at the Cognizant Classic on the PGA Tour, in which he contrived to lose a three-shot lead with a pair of double-bogeys on the 70th and 71st holes of the tournament. 

He admits the following week’s Arnold Palmer Invitational came too soon for him, where he missed the cut. Another missed cut followed at the Players Championship, though Lowry is taking heart from a top-30 finish at the Houston Open, which was gilded by a final-round hole-in-one. 

“Houston is not a golf course that suits my game at all, it’s a course that I don’t think I can win around”, he says. That course is for the long hitters and hat will always be the case, so I feel I put in a good performance there. Practice has been going well, so it has been a decent enough season so far. I could be standing here with two wins and having a different conversation. Whatever happened that Sunday at Cognizant, if I get the opportunity again, hopefully I’ll have learned something from that.” 

More practically, Lowry is sharpening his focus on the par-four third hole at Augusta, saying he played it poorly last year. He feels he is now comfortable on the course’s signature holes, and so now focus is switching to filling in a couple of gaps. 

“There are a certain number of holes out here, the first, fifth, 11th, 12th and 15th: if you play those holes well you can win the Masters”, he says. “I have figured out how to play those holes over the years, and it’s everything else in between, the easy birdies on the par fives you should be making, you need everything to click to have it go your way.

One thing Lowry appears to have been preaching to himself is the importance of “acceptance”, a phrase he repeated during our interview. Acceptance being the serenity to accept the shot outcomes he cannot change and the courage to keep on taking those shots. Lowry has gained a low-key notoriety among golf social media channels for his displays of frustration, and was captured on camera profanely lamenting his breaks at the three major stops post-Masters last year. 

“You have to take a few punches out there on this course, and take them well and move on”, he says. “I am here, ready to give it a run, and see what happens.

“I was talking about this with Neil [Manchip, coach] and Darren [Reynolds, caddie] yesterday, there’s certain times you are standing at the top of the hill on 15 and you have to pull the shot off. You have to go for it and if it’s your year you’ll pull the shot off, and if it’s not then maybe you won’t.

“There are certain shots out here that you have to take on, and if it’s your time to shine it happens, if it’s not it doesn’t. It’s a golf course where the margins are really, really small, where good shots can get punished, and you don’t get away with too many bad shots. So, yeah, a lot of patience but a lot of acceptance that needs to happen this week.

“You’re going to hit some good shots this week that won’t get the rewards you feel they deserve. Its maybe how the season has gone for me, I’ve had to accept a lot of good golf and hard work and not much reward for it.” 

Of course this week offers the greatest of rewards. Lowry didn’t engage too deeply with a question asking where a Masters win would rank with his blue-chip career achievements at the 2025 Ryder Cup and the 2019 Open Championship, but he did not shy away from his desire to win at Augusta National. 

“I’d love to be coming back here forever”, he says, alluding to the lifetime exemption granted to past champions. “I’d love to be 70 years of age and sitting out on that lawn with Rory, having a drink. We have talked about that. I would love to be that person, I’d love to be going to the Champions Dinner every year. There’s a lot that comes with it and you try not to think about it too much.

“I always said I’d love to be the first Irishman to win the green jacket, that obviously can’t be the case anymore, so the second would be pretty nice.” 

And has he closed his eyes and pictured McIlroy slipping a green jacket upon his shoulders on Sunday evening? 

“There’s no doubt I have thought about it.”, replies Lowry. “Jeez, that’s dream stuff, isn’t it?”