2 rookies were struggling. Then came Shane Lowry’s memorable gesture

TROON, Scotland — When it comes to professional golfers, it can be difficult to parse real from fake.

Most of the men and women of professional golf seem like great hangs from inside our television screens, but everybody acts friendly when there’s a television camera pointed in their face. Understanding someone’s nature is slightly harder, particularly in this age of handlers and social media managers and neatly manicured public images. Conversely, there is nothing that fans seek out more than to understand the nature of their sporting heroes.

Is the golfer before me really who they say they are — a genuine, friendly, boots-to-nuts good dude? Or are they a carefully cultivated fabrication, the kind of person who acts like a generous, well-heeled figure only to change his tune into a transactional, disinterested self-obsessive the second the cameras turn off?

When it comes to Open Championship leader Shane Lowry, we can answer the above question confidently. Lowry may be a feisty competitor (lest we forget his near-fistfight with Joe LaCava off the 18th green at last fall’s Ryder Cup), but he’s also one of golf’s great teddy bears. He’s not just one of the most beloved players in the world when he’s in between the ropes — he’s also one of golf’s most beloved figures well away from the golf course.

The stories of his kinship and generosity travel well beyond the fairways of the PGA Tour — stories like the one shared by fellow Open competitor (and current DP World Tour pro/LIV reserve) Laurie Canter on Open Championship Saturday.

“Okay, I’ve got a good Shane Lowry story,” Canter said Saturday at Royal Troon.

The story, Canter said, begins with his rookie year on the DP World Tour in 2016. Canter was something of a surprise pro that year, having advanced through DPWT qualifying and onto the big circuit, and his game reflected it. He played in 17 events as a rookie and made just six cuts, recording prize money south of $50,000 — or hardly enough to cover his travel expenses.

Life on the road had brought him to the Portuguese Masters, where he was out for dinner at a pizzeria with another struggling rookie named Gary Hurley. As often happens during tour weeks, Hurley and Canter were not the only pros enjoying a meal at the pizzeria — also in the dining room was Lowry, who neither player knew beyond a few perfunctory words throughout the season.

“We were having dinner together at a pizzeria,” Canter recalled. “End of the meal the bill came, and the lady said, your bill has been settled by that gentleman over there, and it was Shane. So there you go.”

Canter and Hurley were gobsmacked.

“I barely knew him, barely had said a word to him at that point,” Canter said .”I think he recognized a couple of rookies and he thought, throw these lads a bone. So there you go. I have not forgotten that. It was a really nice gesture.”

A nice enough gesture, evidently, that Canter felt compelled to share it on Saturday at the Open Championship, the same morning that Lowry entered the tournament in the final pairing and with the solo, 36-hole lead.

Lowry might very well go on to win his second Open this weekend at Royal Troon. A driving rainstorm on Saturday and the blustering winds on Thursday and Friday portend good things for his chaos-welcoming playing style. If he’s in the hunt on Sunday afternoon, though, you can be sure that the rest of the folks at Troon will be behind him.

Both outside the ropes, and surprisingly, inside of them.