Shane Lowry is excited to get his season under way in the Farmers Insurance Open, the venue for the top entry on his 2024 highlights reel.
The Irishman made the first albatross of his career during the final round at Torrey Pines 12 months ago, holing his second shot from 256 yards on the par-five sixth.
The rare feat helped Lowry finish in a tie for 25th as France’s Matthieu Pavon claimed victory in just his third start as a PGA Tour member, with Lowry’s Ryder Cup team-mate Nicolai Højgaard just a shot behind Pavon.
“I’ve started my season a few times here so it kind of made sense to me,” Lowry told Golf Channel. “I like this type of golf. Obviously we’re playing two course here but the South Course is quite a tough golf course, a US Open venue and I like that type of golf so I do like coming here at the start of the year.
“Just the way my schedule’s working out, I’m in all the elevated events, the signature events, so come here this week, play Pebble [Beach] next week and then on from there.
“I’m quite excited to get my season started. I’ve had a long time off and looking forward to getting going again.
“I had four weeks in Ireland, didn’t touch a golf club for four weeks, which was nice, but then been back in Florida for the last few weeks.
“Played a bit of TGL, had some great fun doing that; that was some of the most enjoyable time I’ve had playing golf in a while so just trying to get back to working at it and planning for this season.
“Obviously lot of big things coming up. The Masters is the first big one, or huge one. We’ve got that to look forward to and then on to the other majors and Ryder Cup.”
Asked about his albatross during last year’s tournament, Lowry said: “I remember things weren’t going very well for me at the time.
“I think I was one over through four or five holes and then I hit a lovely 5-wood in there [on the sixth]. I pulled it a little bit and got a nice bounce and went in.
“I holed quite a few shots last year, I’ve a good highlight reel from 2024 so that was good fun. It’s always nice to do something like that.”
The Farmers Insurance Open is again being staged from Wednesday to Saturday to avoid clashing with television coverage of Sunday’s NFL Conference Championship games.
