LAST UPDATE | 26 Feb 2023

SHANE LOWRY SAYS he is playing in honour of his late uncle who passed away suddenly this week, as he heads into the final round of the Honda Classic in Florida.

The Offaly native moved into contention at the at the PGA National resort yesterday, and is just four shots behind leader Chris Kirk. Lowry is wearing a green and white ribbon this weekend to commemorate his uncle uncle Jimmy Lowry, who was a stalwart of Ferbane GAA club.

“Yeah, my uncle sadly passed away on Thursday morning,” Lowry explained after his impressive third-round display of five-under 65 which puts him in a share of fourth place heading into the final day.

“Yeah, my dad’s brother, unexpected. It’s very sad week for our family. To be honest, I wanted to go home on Thursday when I heard the news. A lot of people talked me out of it.

“I’m here now. I’m trying to play for him and play for his wife and his kids and my cousins and my uncles and my aunts and everyone at home because we’re a very close family and very proud of our name and very proud of where we come from.

“Green and white is just where he’s from, that’s Ferbane in Offaly, in Ireland, and said I’d wear it. Yeah, hopefully I can go out and make him proud. Everyone keeps telling me how proud he was of me over the last number of years, and hopefully I can do him another day proud.”

Speaking further about his uncle’s life, Lowry went on to explain how his relative dedicated himself to the GAA.

“He’s two years older than my dad, so he’s 66. He’s just a great man. He loved working. He loved hard work. He loved hardship. He was big into Gaelic games at home. He didn’t necessarily play at the highest level, but he was very involved and loved in the community, and he was just a great man. He was great craic, and I loved him.

“It’s a very sad day for our family. Yeah, it’s just quite sad, and it’s quite hard. It’s been a difficult week. It’s been very difficult not to be there at home for my dad because my dad is a big softy and he’ll take this quite hard. But I’ll see him in a couple of weeks when he comes out here, and yeah.”

Lowry finished second in last year’s edition of the Honda Classic, narrowly losing out to Sepp Straka in the end. The final round of that event was impacted by rain, and Lowry is hopeful that there won’t be any repeat of poor weather this time around.

“I just hope it doesn’t rain.

“No, look, this golf course, you don’t know what’s going to happen. You just need to stick in as long as you can. There’s not many holes where you can stand up, and you don’t want to be complacent but take it easy on them.

“Every hole is a bit of a disaster hole, or a lot of holes are a bit of disaster holes. You just need to be very cautious and aggressive to your targets and just go out there and give it your best, and if that’s good enough at the end of the day, you hope to be standing here with the trophy.