Shane Lowry was understandably hurting.
He’d led the Cognizant Classic by three shots with three holes to play, only to see Nicolas Echavarria’s hands on the trophy at the end on Sunday evening at PGA National. Back-to-back double bogeys, at Nos. 16 and 17, erased Lowry’s lead with Echavarria’s birdie up ahead at the par-3 17th proving the difference.
Lowry’s collapse marked his second of the year, as he chipped into the water and doubled his final hole to slip to T-3 at the DP World Tour’s Dubai Invitational in January.
Admirably, though, Lowry stepped up to the mic afterward.
“I’m obviously extremely disappointed,” Lowry said. “I had the tournament in my hands, and I threw it away. What more can I say? That’s twice this year now so far. I’m getting good at it.”
Lowry’s unraveling began at the par-4 16th hole, the second of the vaunted three-hole Bear Trap, where Lowry found the water with a wayward 3-iron off the tee, the only rinsed tee ball of the day there. He said he was battling a weird feeling of not being able to feel the club in his hands the last three holes, something that didn’t even happen at last year’s Ryder Cup. He wedged back into the fairways after his drop but then found a greenside bunker with his fourth shot.
Lowry followed by badly rinsing his tee shot short and right into the pond at the par-3 17th. He only managed to hit his third shot to 35 feet from the drop area, two-putting for another double. With a chance to force a playoff, Lowry couldn’t convert a 10-footer for birdie at the par-5 finishing hole.
Lowry remains winless at PGA National, where he was notably also runner-up in 2022, when he was edged by Sepp Straka in a tournament that finished in the rain.
“I’d say I was beaten that day,” Lowry said. “But I beat myself today.”
Asked how he’d regroup for next week’s Arnold Palmer Invitational, Lowry said he had “no choice but to move on.” Still, this one will sting for a few days.
“The hardest thing about today is I’ve never won in front of my 4-year-old, and she was there waiting for me,” Lowry said, referencing his youngest daughter, Ivy. “Yeah, I only wanted it for her today. I didn’t want it for – I don’t care about anything else. I wanted it so bad. Just to see her little ginger hair running down the 18th green would have been the most special thing in the world. I thought I had it. I thought I was going to win.”