Shane Lowry won the 2026 Amgen Irish Open by 11 shots on Sunday, the largest winning margin in the championship’s history. His four-round total of 23-under 257 at Trump International Ireland in Doonbeg broke Bernhard Langer’s 39-year-old record of ten strokes set at Portmarnock in 1987.
An exhibition from the first green
The home favourite began the final round with a four-shot cushion and immediately widened it. Lowry rolled in an 18-foot birdie putt on the opening hole while playing partner Jacob Skov Olesen dropped a shot, stretching the lead to six.
A birdie on the fifth made it seven clear. Then, on the par-3 seventh, Lowry sent a 45-foot putt racing over a ridge and into the cup, pushing the margin to eight and ending the contest before the turn.
Closing with a knowing flourish
Lowry turned in 33 and added four birdies on the homeward nine. The last was a 30-footer on the 18th green, and he began stretching out his arms while the ball was still rolling toward the cup.
The closing 7-under 63 left him alone on 257, seven strokes better than Jon Rahm’s 2019 72-hole tournament record at Lahinch. Patrick Reed and Joaquin Niemann tied for second, both eleven shots adrift on a calm Atlantic afternoon where Lowry barely visited rough or sand.
A homecoming seventeen years in the making
Lowry first won the Irish Open as an amateur in 2009 in a playoff at Baltray. Since then he has claimed the 2019 Open Championship at Royal Portrush and holed the clinching putt for Europe at last year’s Ryder Cup.
His season had been quiet after a late stumble at the Cognizant Classic cost him a title. “I just don’t do things half-measures,” he told reporters afterwards. “I can’t believe I’m standing here on top of the leaderboard.”
Rory McIlroy had said the whole country wanted to see him get it done. On a cloudy day in Doonbeg, Lowry gave an entire nation exactly that.
