Shane Lowry heartbroken for 4y/o daughter after admitting: 'I threw win away'

Playing beautifully, the Irishman held a three-shot lead with three holes to play in the final round of the Cognizant Classic in the Palm Beaches at PGA National in Florida.

He was on course for a fourth PGA Tour victory and first individual win since the 2022 BMW PGA Championship at Wentworth before taking double bogeys at both the 16th and 17th holes after getting wet with tee shots on both occasions.

Instead, victory went to Colombian Nico Echavarria, who closed with a bogey-free 66 to win by two shots from Lowry - American duo Austin Smotherman and Taylor Moore as well - as he had to settle for 69.

“I'm obviously extremely disappointed,” admitted the 2019 Open champion. “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.”

That was in reference to him running up a double-bogey at the closing hole in the Dubai Invitational, which he ended up losing to Spaniard Nacho Elvira.

“Yeah, look, what can I say?” added Lowry. “I played unbelievable all day, and one bad shot on 16 completely threw me for the last three holes. It's never happened to me before.”

Referring to his brilliant finish in the singles in last year’s Ryder Cup as he dug deep to ensure that Europe retained the trophy in New York, Lowry said: “I said to Darren [Reynolds, his caddie], how do I feel like this now when I went through what I did last September in Bethpage and got through that fine.

‘This is going to be hard to take’

“I just felt like it was weird out there; yeah, just couldn't feel the club face the last three holes then after my tee shot on 16. It was strange. It's very disappointing. Geez, this is going to be hard to take. Dubai was hard at the start of the year, but this is going to be pretty hard.”

It wasn’t the first time that Lowry had been bitten by the final few holes in the ‘Bear Trap’ on PGA National, but this one hurt a lot more than anything in the past.

“The hardest thing about today is I've never won in front of my four-year-old, and she was there waiting for me,” he admitted. “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.

“I didn't get ahead of myself, but I felt so comfortable out there, and then yeah, tried to get a lot out of my 3-iron on 16 and did the only thing I couldn't really do.

“I had an unbelievable up-and-down, obviously, to make 6 and stay one ahead, but then I go up and watch Nico hole that putt for birdie (at the 17th) to go tied for the lead.”

Talking about then finding water with his tee shot at the same hole, he admitted: “It was a perfect number for me, and it suited me perfectly. Wind was slightly in out of the left, and that's my bread and butter, a little chip 7-iron. But golf does strange things to you at times, and it certainly did it to me today.”