The second episode of Netflix’s ‘Full Swing,’ Season 3, entitled “Through Thick and Thin,” is devoted to friendships. Here, the spotlight is trained primarily on two pairs of players: Canadians Adam Hadwin and Nick Taylor, and Irishmen Rory McIlroy and Shane Lowry, as they prepare for the PGA Tour season’s lone team event, the Zurich Classic.
For Hadwin and Taylor, the hope was to use their performance together as a launch pad to a potentialy team-up at the 2024 Presidents Cup. But for McIlroy and Lowry, the motivations were slightly different. Last year marked the first time McIlroy had ever teed it up at the New Orleans tournament in his 17-year career — a development that came about as the result of a drunken lunch with Lowry.
Lowry and McIlroy have a long history of friendship that began when they were juniors growing up in Ireland, which the episode documents in detail. As the current World No. 3 — and winner of four major championships — McIlroy has been one of the game’s biggest stars for the better part of two decades. His fame — and game — are likely the envy of many of his peers, Lowry included. But the episode’s most revelatory moments occurred in each player’s respective confessionals, where at one point, Lowry admitted to feeling protective of McIlroy.
“No one’s ever asked me that,” Lowry said. “And now that you say it, I probably would do, yeah.
“He gets a lot of unnecessary criticism from the general public, the golf media, the other players,” Lowry continued. “Stuff like that can weigh heavily on people, and I just feel like he gets a lot of s—.”
In his own confessional, McIlroy revealed the things he admires about Lowry, which offered a revealing glimpse into McIlroy’s personal difficulties.
“Sometimes I’ve struggled with the balance of trying to be the best golfer, trying to be the best husband or the best dad or the best … and sometimes I get overwhelmed and it can get a bit too much for me,” he said. “And then, you know, I see how Shane does it with with a lot of ease, and sometimes you have to focus on one or the other. And you know, he’s really good at that, and I see him as like a good role model for me in some ways.
“I can learn a lot from him and how he handles everything in his life.”
The episode came full circle when the two friends clinched a playoff win together at the Zurich — a heartwarming moment that represented McIlroy’s 25th PGA Tour victory and Lowry’s third.
The best news? These two besties will be back to defend their title at the 2025 edition of the tournament in April.
