Shane Lowry and Brooks Koepka teamed up at the Zurich Classic of New Orleans this week, a pairing that looked unlikely on paper but made immediate sense to both men on Thursday at TPC Louisiana. Lowry said he put the idea to Koepka with a simple pitch for New Orleans, and Koepka was already on board.
“I said to him, ‘I might need a partner for New Orleans,’” Lowry said. “He goes, ‘Well, I’m going to have to play there.’ That was it.” Koepka, who returned from LIV Golf to the PGA Tour in January, said the fit did not need much explaining. “To the outside it might not look like it makes sense, but, you know, to us it does,” he said.
The pairing carries more than curiosity because the Zurich Classic is built around self-selected two-man teams, with four-ball and foursomes split across the four rounds. For Lowry, the tournament also filled a gap left by Rory McIlroy, who had played the previous two editions with him and won alongside him in 2024 but did not enter this year. Koepka, meanwhile, came into the week still short of the FedEx points needed to qualify for the Signature Events.
Lowry said he and Koepka had already spent time together a few months back at Grove XXIII, a round that added to a friendship that began in 2012 and 2013. Koepka said the relationship is more natural than it may appear from the outside because players on tour keep crossing paths. “Everybody plays the same golf courses, so we see each other pretty much every other day,” he said, adding that he does not go a day without seeing another player out here and that there are always conversations, lunches and practice sessions.
The matchup also brings together two golfers who have often been linked to opposite Ryder Cup sides, including the heated 2023 edition outside Rome. That history did not stop them from choosing each other in New Orleans, and it gives the team an edge that is harder to quantify than rankings or points. Lowry and Koepka were not trying to make a statement; they were solving a tournament problem with a partner they already trusted.
That is what gives the shane lowry brooks koepka partnership its point. It is less about the shock of seeing them walk inside the ropes together than about the fact that, for two players who know each other well enough to skip the explanation, the choice was obvious the moment Lowry asked.
