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<\/p>\nShane Lowry is a part of an unlikely partnership at this week\u2019s Zurich Classic.<\/p>\n
The 2019 Open Championship winner is pairing up with five-time major winner Brooks Koepka in the team event in New Orleans.<\/p>\n
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For the last two years, Lowry has teamed with his good friend Rory McIlroy, winning it in 2024, but the back-to-back Masters winner isn\u2019t playing the event this year, so Lowry had to seek a new partner.<\/p>\n
In the build-up to the event, Lowry explained why he chose Koepka as the man to go to battle with at the Zurich.<\/p>\n
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Photo by Chris Graythen\/Getty Images<\/p>\n
The reason why Shane Lowry chose Brooks Koepka as his Zurich Classic partner<\/p>\n
Koepka returned to the PGA Tour from LIV Golf this year under specific conditions. He made a $5 million charitable donation and accepted that he won\u2019t receive FedEx Cup bonus money or sponsor exemptions for Signature Events in 2026.<\/p>\n
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Under these conditions, Koepka is playing in nearly every event in which he\u2019s eligible for, which led Lowry to ask him to partner with him at the Zurich.<\/p>\n
Speaking to Chantel McCabe on Sirius XM Radio, Lowry explained how the partnership came to fruition: \u201cWell, I\u2019m playing, and obviously, my partner from the last two years told me that he wasn\u2019t going to play. And I\u2019ve known Brooks a while, and I\u2019m friendly with Ricky Elliot, his caddie.<\/p>\n
\u201cSo I said to Rickie, I kind of knew Brooks was going to have to play because he wasn\u2019t in many of the Signature Events. And I said, \u2018Do you think Brooks will play?\u2019<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re both Srixon players, it kind of fits a little bit. And he\u2019s obviously a very good player, and I want to go and win.\u201d<\/p>\n
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With six majors between them, Lowry and Koepka make up the most talented pairing in the field, and they\u2019ll feel confident in their chances of winning.<\/p>\n
Brooks Koepka\u2019s team event record<\/p>\n
Koepka is no stranger to playing in team events, having been a regular on Team USA\u2019s Ryder Cup and Presidents Cup teams. But his team record leaves much to be desired.<\/p>\n
First, the Ryder Cup, where Koepka has a record of 7-6-2. But three of those wins, and a tie, come from Sunday Singles. In the team events at the Ryder Cup, Koepka\u2019s record is 4-6-1.<\/p>\n
He also suffered the biggest defeat in a team event in Ryder Cup history, losing 9&7 to Ludvig Aberg and Viktor Hovland in 2023 alongside Scottie Scheffler.<\/p>\n
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Koepka has played in just one Presidents Cup in 2017, and there he put in a better showing. He went 2-1 in the team events at Liberty National.<\/p>\n
He\u2019ll hope for a better showing alongside Ryder Cup specialist Lowry, who is 3-2-1 in Ryder Cup team events, and a past winner of the Zurich.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Shane Lowry is a part of an unlikely partnership at this week\u2019s Zurich Classic. The 2019 Open Championship…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":625871,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[566],"tags":[64,63,73434,51505,755,65751,1656,85,274614,303244],"class_list":{"0":"post-625870","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-golf","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-brooks-koepka","11":"tag-fedex-cup","12":"tag-golf","13":"tag-playing","14":"tag-shane-lowry","15":"tag-sports","16":"tag-team-events","17":"tag-zurich-classic"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/625870","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=625870"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/625870\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/625871"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=625870"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=625870"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=625870"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}