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By Kent Gray
To quote Shane Lowry, golf is a “funny game, isn’t it”. Sometimes it’s even downright “weird”.

After losing his PGA Tour card last season, the Irishman chose a New Year escape in Dubai to gather his game and recalibrate his goals for the new European Tour season, thankful at least he had his old stomping ground to cushion the fall.

After a flawless 62 to open 2019 and the 14^th Abu Dhabi HSBC Championship presented by EGA on Wednesday, he’s apparently rediscovered some of the magic missing Stateside last year where he finished 140^th in the FedEx Cup standings and counted a pair of T-12 finishes at the Canadian Open and PGA Championship as highlights of a tough season.

In a flurry of 10 birdies and eight pars, the 31-year-old is now joint owner of The National course record and the leader of the $7 million Rolex Series event by three strokes from 2014 champion PabloLarrazábal, Frenchman Mike Lorenzo-Vera and South Africans Louis Oosthuizen and Richard Sterne.

Henrik Stenson finally has company in the history books 14 years after the Swede carded a 62 in the third round of the inaugural Abu Dhabi championship in 2006 while Lowry suddenly stands alone as the custodian of the tournament’s finest opening round, eclipsing by a shot Phillip Archer’s 63 out of the blocks in 2007.

Lowry hadn’t teed it up in competition since earning a share of 10^th at the World Cup of Golf In Melbourne in late November but showed little sign of ring-rust, much less any mental hangover from 2018, thanks largely to his family’s temporary home away from home Dubai.

“I had a lovely break at Christmas. I was home for the whole lot of it and [then] I came out here with my family and rented a house in Dubai. We’ve had it since the 3rd of January,” Lowry revealed.

“Myself and Paul Dunne are sharing the house and we’re practicing together and we’ve been playing a lot together over at the Els Club in Dubai, and we got some great work done. I feel good about my game. It’s probably the best preseason I’ve ever done and it showed today. I’m just hoping I can keep going.”

Golf tournaments aren’t won on Thursdays – or in Abu Dhabi’s case this year, Wednesday – but Lowry has taken a major stride towards a fourth European Tour title to go with the 2009 Irish Open he won as an amateur, 2012 Portugal Masters and career highlight WGC-Bridgestone Invitational triumph in 2015.

He clearly has Martin Kaymer’s record 36-hole aggregate of 131 – the German dipped 13 under par in both 2008 and 2015 – within his sights when he tees it up in the second round at 12:25pm on Thursday.  There’s a long way to go before Kaymer’s historic -24 winning score in 2011 is troubled but who knows given thoroughly receptive greens, especially if he can kept clear of the succulent rough which shapes as The Nationals’ only defence until at least Friday when a blow is forecast.

Whatever happens, Lowry is a man refocused. Padraig Harrington’s ascension to the Ryder Cup captaincy has left last season’s Valderrama Masters runner-up intent on making a European debut at Whistling Straits in 20 months time.

“I sat down at the end of the year to plan out my schedule for this season and I could have got in a few events in America if I tried with my category and maybe got an invite here or there, but my main goal for the next 18 months is to be on the [European Tour],” he said.

“I’ve never played Ryder Cup and I really want to at some stage. I’m obviously very good friends with him [Harrington]….to play with him as my captain would be unbelievable. That’s my plan.”

The plan for Thursday is simple  – if not easily achieved like Ryder Cup dreams – as well. With former Open champion Oosthuizen  (65) and the likes of Brooks Koepka (67), Ian Poulter, Lee Westwood and three time defending champion Martin Kaymer (all 66s) still very much in the mix, Lowry knows he’ll need to kept his foot down. Even two-time defending champion Tommy Fleetwood and Dustin Johnson at seven adrift can’t be discounted.

“I had a great conversation with my coach last night.  We were just talking about things and we both agreed that in this game, you just have to go out, shoot the best score you can no matter what score you shoot, “ Lowry said. “We were talking about if I go out there and shoot 74 today, I still have to just go and have my dinner this evening and go out and see what I can shoot tomorrow.

“So first of all, I think I really need to enjoy this because days like this, best round of your career, doesn’t come around very often obviously. Just enjoy it, have a nice dinner, see my family, and get out tomorrow and just hit my tee shot down the 1st and go for it from there.”

The 62 equals Lowry’s second round score in the 2009 Irish Open where he went on to beat Robert Rock, a former champion in Abu Dhabi, in a playoff at County Lough to become just the third amateur to claim a European Tour title.  Talk about turning back the clock.

“I don’t know, like it’s weird. Golf is just a funny game, isn’t it. Obviously quite a lot of time off since the World Cup … and just gone out with not much expectation but knew I was playing okay, and yeah, everything clicked.”

It could have been even better too after he burned the left edge of the cup on the 4^th (his 12^th hole) for what would have been a fifth successive birdie. There was also the putt on the par-4 9^th he had to knock Stenson from the record books but ultimately under-cooked.

“I’m obviously over the moon. It equals the best score I’ve ever shot. I knew that as well and I said it to my caddie coming down the last. A birdie here would be the best score I’ve ever shot…he said, ‘well, then why don’t you just go for it’.

“I left the putt short but I felt like I hit a decent putt, it was just a bit more into the grain than I felt. Obviously I’m very chuffed.”