THE WINNER TAKES IT ALL

Euphoric Lowry showed the spirit that tamed the USA and America

- Roy CURTIS

FLOODING the veins of Bethpage with moonstruck delirium, the wilds of his passion transporting him across the 18th green like a bucking, uncon-tainable Offaly rodeo horse, Shane Lowry delivered a masterpiece of spontaneous celebration.

Under a spell of euphoria, in a trance of absolute fulfilment, drunk on the giddiness of what he had just achieved, Lowry dispatched what was, for a multitude of reasons, the most uplifting, visually striking sporting snapshot of 2025.

Across Ireland, a vast TV audience felt a surge of something tribal and thrilling, one of those irregular but beautiful communal eruptions of shared satisfaction, an ecstasy in the air that seizes ownership of the night.

What is it that elevates an Irish sports star to the rarefied territory of the beloved?

With Paul McGrath it was the personal vulnerabilities in which his genius was so precariously wrapped, the one that filled every Irish mother with an urge to wrap him in a maternal hug.

With Katie Taylor it was her unbreakable integrity and courage in pursuit of untouched ground.

And with Lowry it has always been his relatability, a Midlands everyman — one of us — blessed with an otherworldly talent.

This week he added a further X-factor: A willingness, whatever the personal cost, to climb into a seething bully pulpit and face down loudmouth tormentors.

To look the worst of Trump's America in the eye and not flinch.

A weekend of Ryder Cup stardust offered a timely reminder — after a season during which his perfectionist, on-course frustrations too often boiled over into an unpleasant Monty-like crankiness — of the authenticity, the heart-on-his-sleeve, sense-of-place likeability, that makes Lowry special.

And, among modern, programmed athletes, so vanishingly rare.