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Shane Lowry, not Rory McIlroy, will carry the flag for the Irish Olympic team

VaselineJuly 28, 2024

1 2 minutes read

Shane Lowry, not Rory McIlroy, will carry the flag for the Irish Olympic team

PGA Tour superstar Rory McIlroy will represent Ireland at the Olympics, but that has been a tough decision for him in the past.

Team Ireland had a PGA Tour golfer carry the flag at the opening ceremony for the 2024 Olympic Games in Paris, but it probably wasn’t the Irish golfer you might expect.

Not teammate Rory McIlroy, but Shane Lowry received the honour.

Lowry and McIlroy, friends who won the Zurich Classic in New Orleans together earlier this year, are team-mates in the Ryder Cup and will also be Olympic team-mates for Team Ireland in the golf competition, which begins on August 1 at Le Golf National near Paris.

For McIlroy, a longtime leading member of the European Ryder Cup team, Olympic representation has been a complicated subject in the past. He hails from Northern Ireland, which does not compete separately. Forced to choose, McIlroy chose to represent Ireland (rather than Great Britain) at the Tokyo Games, and he will do so again in Paris.

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McIlroy has previously said he resents the Olympics forcing him to choose, however, saying The Mirror “I don’t feel connected to either flag.”

“Once I left, not wanting to offend anyone, it was actually quite an easy decision,” he explained in 2021. “The decision was that I was going to play golf for the country or nation that I have always played for, from my junior and amateur days right through to now, in professional sport. And that is Ireland.”

While McIlroy gets most of the attention from golfers in his corner of Europe, his teammate Lowry is also a strong player who is set for a strong 2024 season on the PGA Tour.

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Lowry is 10th in the FedEx Cup standings. He has six top-10s in 16 events, including top-six finishes at the PGA Championship and the British Open in Scotland.

“It’s a huge honour for me and my family,” Lowry said in a video shared by the Irish Olympic Federation. “Anyone who knows me knows how patriotic I am and how much I love Ireland and how much I love playing for my country. It’s something you wouldn’t even dream of as a kid because it’s so far away.”

Lowry and McIlroy both played for Ireland at the Tokyo Games. Lowry finished 22nd and McIlroy lost a play-off and missed out on the bronze medal, behind winner Xander Schauffele.

VaselineJuly 28, 2024

1 2 minutes read

PGA Tour superstar Rory McIlroy will represent Ireland at the Olympics, but that has been a tough decision for him in the past.

Vaseline

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