Playing in the same group as Tiger Woods at Augusta National Golf Club can be the experience of a lifetime for any player. It can also be a unique opportunity to learn the best way to play the super-exclusive course from one of its most successful players.
Such was the case for Shane Lowry, who had the rare opportunity to play with Woods for not one, not two, but three rounds at the 2020 edition of The Masters.
“I learned like so much from him,” Lowry recalled during a recent interview with Golf.com.
“I remember the first day I played with him he shot 4-under and I was like ‘he didn’t even play that good.’ Up the fifth hole he would never hit in that bunker on the left, you know, he’d always make sure he hits it like his second shot on 15, he hits a kind of long right of green, where he leaves himself in the best positions.”
“I think Augusta is nearly about that, it’s about playing away from the trouble a little bit and being kind of playing a game of chess in there.”
Lowry noted that when Woods plays the Masters Tournament, he even takes into account the trees that grow in certain places at Augusta National.
“If you watch him down nine, all the time he hits a big high one, because there’s a tree down the left that overhangs, and if you pull it a little bit with, like, a mid height, it catches the tree, but if you hit a high, it’ll carry over the tree. So little things like that, actually make a big difference.”
