Lowry leads latest dozen Masters qualifiers
Masters countdown: Irishman's 'second' season shows 'I still have it'; Is 11 enough for LIV
Shane Lowry earns a 10th crack at his “favourite” week of the year (David Paul Morris/ANGC)
Shane Lowry had two big chances this season to book his major schedule out for the next five years by winning another major. Instead he finished sixth in both the PGA and Open championships.
But with his five-year exemptions to each of the U.S.-based majors exhausted for winning the 2019 Open Championship at Royal Portrush, he extended his major eligibility through 2025 with his first career qualification for the Tour Championship at East Lake.
“It’s nice that you’re not having to worry about your world ranking and getting in more tournaments,” Lowry said Wednesday. “I can sit down now over next few weeks and plan my schedule. Certainly a part of that definitely helps.”
Lowry is one of the most prominent of the 12 players to book their places in the 2025 season’s biggest events via reaching East Lake. He and Keegan Bradley (2011 PGA Championship) are the only two former major winners to officially add their names to the tee sheet at Augusta National next April.
On the eve of his first Tour Championship, Lowry flashed a chagrined smile to a room full of media.
“It’s almost embarrassing that I haven’t been here,” he said of the PGA Tour’s annual season finale that invites only the tour’s top 30 players on the FedEx Cup points list. “I’ve been a pro a long time and whatever. But yeah, I haven’t been here. … It’s always a goal at the start of the year, and thankfully this year I got to fulfill it.”
This year in particular was a big deal for Lowry to finally reach East Lake. All the exemption benefits for his 2019 Open Championship victory run out, and reaching East Lake sets him up for all the biggest events in 2025 including all eight signature events and the major championships.
But most importantly, his performance throughout 2024 — winning with Rory McIlroy in the Zurich Classic team event as well as contending and finishing sixth in both the PGA and Open Championships — proved to himself that he’s still got the game to measure up with the best in the world.
“Look, you know, I think obviously 2019 was the best year of my career. I would say that this is probably second to that,” Lowry said.
“I think it’s been quite a good year without, like, too many fireworks. I think it’s been quite consistent. You know, couple of really good finishes in majors, lot of top 10s, a lot of consistent golf. Obviously, I won with Rory. I would have liked to get one individually and that’s kind of still right on my list.
“It’s quite refreshing to be honest. Because look, I’ll be really honest with you, at the start of the year, you know, I knew I was turning 37 this year. 37 is not old, but I’ve been on tour a long time, and you start to, at times, some doubt does come into your head. So for me to go out and perform like I did the whole year, I’m really happy with myself. And right now it just shows me that I still have it, and that I, you know, even to go out and compete the way I did at the PGA and the Open and to make all the cuts in the four majors, and do alright, yeah, I think it’s been, been a pretty positive season.”
Lowry has often called the Masters “my favourite week of the year” and he’s made some spirited efforts to win the first green jacket for Ireland, particularly in 2022 when he tied for third with Cameron Smith behind Scottie Scheffler and Rory McIlroy. With made cuts in five consecutive years including four consecutive top-25 finishes from 2020-23, he’s very keen on solving the Augusta riddle while he’s still in his relative prime.
Lowry will turn 38 a week before the Masters in April and he’ll be eying a big major summer with the U.S. Open being played at Oakmont where he was runner-up after holding the 54-hole lead in 2016 and the Open Championship heading back to Royal Portrush where he so memorably triumphed in 2019.
“I’ll be very excited about what’s coming up,” he said. “Obviously going back to Portrush for the Open is special. Oakmont, does it owe me one? I don’t know. But I played very well there the last time. Obviously, going back to Augusta, yeah, look, I there’s no doubt that where I’m at in my career now I look towards the four majors in the Ryder Cup next year. That’s my year. Like, that’s it, you know. So from planning my schedule in January, what’s gonna make me play good when I get to Augusta, the PGA, U.S. Open and how am I going to make the Ryder Cup team and help Luke (Donald) and boys win that. That’s my year.
“To be honest I want to do well at the majors, but the Ryder Cup is going to be at the very top of that list for me. That’s just where I’m at. It’s just where I’m at. It’s what I love doing. It’s what I love. That’s it. Yeah, but I’m very excited about next year … and this year has shown me that I’m still well able to compete at this top level.”
Bradley, who was selected to be the U.S. Ryder Cup captain in 2025 at Bethpage Black in New York, made the big leap by winning last week’s BMW Championship playoff event in Colorado to climb from 50th all the way to fourth in the FedEx Cup standings. He also leapt to No. 11 in the Official World Golf Ranking and 10th on the Presidents Cup points list, making him a possible choice to be a captain’s pick on Jim Furyk’s team in September at Royal Montreal.
Many of the Tour Championship additions were likely going to be top-50 qualifiers for the Masters at the end of the calendar year, but some of them now won’t have to sweat out the math over the last four months of the year. Nos. 14 (Russell Henley), 15 (Sahith Theegala), 18 (Sam Burns), 20 (Sungjae Im), 28 (Akshay Bhatia), 31 (Sepp Straka), 32 (Lowry), 34 (Ben An), 40 (Chris Kirk) and 45 (Christiaan Bezuidenhout) all secured there places in the Masters field by reaching East Lake.
The only player outside the current OWGR top-50 to get into the Masters via the Tour Championship exclusively is No. 59 Tom Hoge.
Two players fell out of the top 30 after the BMW Championship and will have to maintain their perches inside the top 50 by year’s end or find another route back to Augusta — No. 29 Jason Day and No. 38 Denny McCarthy. They’re among a cluster of top-50 and bubble players not yet qualified: Tom Kim (No. 22), Nick Dunlap (35), Min Woo Lee (43), Nick Taylor (47), Adam Hadwin (48), Si Woo Kim (49), Alex Noren (50), Nicolai Højgaard (51) and Eric Cole (52).
Other notable players not yet qualified include: Rickie Fowler, Lucas Glover, Harris English, Mackenzie Hughes and Matt Kuchar.
In addition to the top-50 rankings at the end of the year and the week before the Masters, there are still eight PGA Tour Fall Series tournaments and 14 full-points PGA Tour events in 2025 before the Masters in which winners can earn automatic exemptions. Three more amateur championships — the U.S. Mid-Amateur, Asia-Pacific and Latin America — will send winners to the Masters.
Tyrrell Hatton’s T9 in 2024 booked a ’25 Masters spot as LIV’s only non-major winner (Simon Bruty/ANGC)
Is LIV’s Masters 11 maxed out?
There are 11 LIV golfers qualified for the 2025 Masters — seven past champions (Jon Rahm, Dustin Johnson, Patrick Reed, Sergio Garcia, Bubba Watson, Charl Schwartzel and Phil Mickelson); three recent major winners (Bryson DeChambeau, Brooks Koepka and Cam Smith); and Tyrrell Hatton (T9 in ’24 Masters). Without recruiting fresh blood from the PGA and DP World Tours who might already be qualified, that number isn’t likely to go up since Masters chairman Fred Ridley has not created an exemption pathway for players based on their performance in LIV Golf.
With nobody else ranked anywhere inside the OWGR top 100 and ineligible for points at LIV events, players will have to chase world ranking points at lesser events on the European and Asian tours and probably do enough to impress the Masters committee to warrant a special invitation for international players. Joaquin Niemann received one last year for winning the Australian Open and making a concerted effort outside of LIV to earn OWGR points. Other players who have received notice and been rewarded by other majors for their efforts outside of LIV have included Dean Burmester and David Puig.
“As stated in our qualification criteria, we consider international players for special invitations,” Ridley said in April. “I will say that if we felt that there were a player or players, whether they played on the LIV tour or any other tour, who were deserving of an invitation to the Masters, that we would exercise that discretion with regard to special invitations.”