'I’ve never won in front of my four-year-old’: Shane Lowry’s painful confession after Cognizant Classic collapse

Dejected, heartbroken, sad and frustrated. Shane Lowry’s face said it all after missing out on the title despite a dominant start at the Cognizant Classic in The Palm Beaches at PGA National in Florida. Lowry admitted he was heartbroken, especially for his youngest daughter, Ivy. He confessed that he had thrown away a golden opportunity to win in front of his four-year-old daughter for the first time.

Shane Lowry says he only wanted the win for his daughter

“I'm obviously extremely disappointed,” admitted Shane Lowry, as quoted by Scotsman.com. “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,” the 2019 Open champion said.

This was not the first time Shane Lowry had faltered late despite a strong start.

“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 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," he said.

“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. 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,” he added.

Late collapse costs Shane Lowry the title

Shane Lowry had enjoyed a dominant run in the tournament. He held a three-shot lead with three holes to play in the final round and was on course for a fourth PGA Tour victory and his first individual win since the 2022 BMW PGA Championship at Wentworth, before taking double bogeys on both the 16th and 17th holes after finding the water with his tee shots on each occasion.

“Yeah, look, what can I say? 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,” added Lowry.

Lowry also reflected on his brilliant finish in the singles at last year’s Ryder Cup, where he dug deep to help Europe retain the trophy in New York.

“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. 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,” Lowry said.

Missing the title by a whisker meant Colombian Nico Echavarria clinched the Cognizant Classic trophy. Echavarria carded a bogey-free 66 to win by two shots ahead of Lowry.

Also read: PGA Tour steps in with preferred lies rule as final round of Cognizant Classic faces rough weather

Get the latest ICC Men’s T20 World Cup 2026 updates, including the full schedule, teams, live scores, points table, and key series stats such as top run-scorers and wicket-takers.