Esker Hills Golf Club captain John Boland has revealed how a celebration for Shane Lowry’s younger brother turned into a night to remember at the Tullamore course.
Friends and family had turned up to Esker Hills on Sunday evening to celebrate Alan Lowry’s success in the Mullingar Electrical Scratch Trophy on Tuesday.
"They were scenes of joy, elation, just mayhem, wonderful happiness. And loads of renditions of the Offaly Rover."
But the NUI Maynooth student, who emulated his brother’s 2008 success at the event, had to share the limelight as the celebration became truly transatlantic.
A final round of 66 ensured Clara's most famous son had two shots to spare over major winner Bubba Watson in the WGC-Bridgestone Invitational at Firestone.
“It was just unbelievable,” Boland told RTÉ.
“We had a night for Alan because he won the Mullingar Scratch Cup last week. You just couldn’t write the script.
“It just got better and better, and the crowd got bigger and bigger. They were scenes of joy, elation, just mayhem, wonderful happiness. And loads of renditions of the Offaly Rover. We’re on an emotional high down here.”
The Esker Hills captain revealed that Lowry is still very much involved with the club that helped hone his huge talent, adding: “Every year he comes, he looks after the juniors. We have our Junior Captain’s Day and he looks after that every year.
“He sponsors that. He comes down and gives out all the prizes to the younger players in the club. He gives back an awful lot.”
Boland believes that Lowry can use his biggest win to date as a springboard for even greater success.
“He did really well he finished in the top 10 in the Open last year, he did really well in the US Open this year, finished in the top 10 there,” he said.
“He’s progressing, but he’s ambitious and he wants to win and we believe that this is only the start.”
Former European Tour player John McHenry is also anticipating a huge future for Lowry.
“I think he now knows that he can win against a stellar field and I expect him to win major championships,” McHenry said.
“Ever since Shane won in Baltray as an amateur - he won the Irish Open - the shots he hit coming down the closing stretch marked him out as being someone fairly special.
“This year when he went on to the PGA Tour and showed just how good he’s capable of playing consistently against very, very strong fields and then to move on to this event - and there’s only four of them in the world, the world championships.
“They’re the tour’s effort to try and bring together the world top 50 players more regularly and we’ve predicted for a long time that Shane has the game, but I think that he himself hasn’t had the self-belief.
“This is by far and away the biggest even that he has won to date. I really think that this is a barrier he’s gone through now and I think that mentally he’ll move on.”
