Shane Lowry received plenty of criticism for making the Ryder Cup team, as many felt Poland’s Adrian Meronk should have captured a spot instead.
But Lowry feels pretty strongly about making his second Ryder Cup appearance.
“[The criticism] didn’t sit very well with me, to be honest,” Lowry admitted Tuesday. “I feel like, yes, my results have not been amazing this year, but I feel like I deserve my place on the team. If you purely go down to statistics and go down to the 12 best players in Europe, I am one of them.”
“And I feel like I deserve my place on the team.”
Lowry recorded only one top 10 in his 18 PGA Tour starts. The 2019 Open Champion did not even qualify for the FedEx Cup Playoffs.
Yet Lowry quieted the doubters at last week’s Horizon Irish Open at The K Club.
“If I shut a few people up, so be it, but I wasn’t trying to do that last week,” the Irishman said. “I wasn’t trying to finish third last week. I was trying to win last week. So last week was disappointing for me.”
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Lowry finished the tournament at 12-under, two strokes behind winner Vincent Norrman of Sweden.
It marked his best finish in any PGA or DP World Tour event he played this season.
“I didn’t feel like I had to go out and prove anything to anyone last week,” Lowry added, defending his spot on the team. “This week is the same. I’m trying to win the tournament here this week. I know I deserve to be on that team, and I know I’ll be good in Rome in a couple of weeks, and I’m very excited for it.”
Lowry tees off the opening round of the 2023 BMW PGA Championship at 8:00 a.m. ET Thursday. Fellow Ryder Cuppers Tommy Fleetwood and Sepp Straka will join him for the first two rounds.
Jack Milko is a golf staff writer for SB Nation’s Playing Through. You can follow him on Twitter @jack_milko for more golf coverage. Be sure to check out @_PlayingThrough too.