Winning on the PGA Tour is insanely difficult, and nobody on the planet knows that more as we sit here on March 2, 2026, than Mr. Shane Lowry. The Irishman was essentially two good swings away from winning the Cognizant Classic and snapping his drought on Tour, but when the pressure reached its peak, he completely crumbled.
A man who didn’t crumble on Sunday, or the Sunday before that, in fact, is one Casey Jarvis. The 22-year-old South African may not have been on your radar just a few weeks ago, but he’s a name we all may want to get familiar with, especially before the calendar turns to April, as he will be teeing it up in the Masters.
Anthony Kim will be back in action later this week with LIV Golf Hong Kong on the slate, and for the first time in well over a decade, he’ll begin a tournament having won the previous time he teed it up. It’s not new territory for Kim, but it’ll certainly feel like it, yet something tells me he’s well-prepared to handle all that comes with it.
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The Shane Lowry Bottle Job
We use the words ‘choke’ and ‘collapse’ too often and casually in the sports world, but there is no other way to describe what we saw out of Shane Lowry on Sunday at PGA National. He was standing on the 16th tee with a three-shot advantage, and ultimately lost the golf tournament by two shots.
Lowry was a bit of an escape artist early on in the final round, holing a pair of lengthy par putts to keep him afloat, and then came the full-on topped tee shot on the Par 4 6th hole that somehow stayed out of the water. There were signs that his golf swing wasn’t exactly clicking on all cylinders during the final round, and when the pressure hit its peak, his swing unraveled.
What’s being overlooked a bit is that Lowry was six-under thru 13 holes on Sunday, it didn’t exactly feel like his deep score matched the eye test, but they don’t ask how, only how many on the scorecard.
With iron in hand on the 16th tee, the wipey, weak cut came out and Lowry was reaching in his bag for another ball after finding the drink. He actually put together a ridiculously impressive up-and-down from the greenside bunker to save double bogey, but things were moving quickly for the Irishman as he made his way to the 17th tee box.
Another wipey fade into the drink, this one even worse than the last, and the golf tournament suddenly went from being his to one where he’d have to battle to stay inside the Top 5 on the leaderboard.
You don’t even have to understand the mechanics of the golf swing to recognize Lowry was fighting some demons on both 16 and 17 tee. To see the No. 31 player on Earth, and one who has been in plenty of pressure-packed spots, to crumble like that was stunning.
Lowry won the Zurich Classic with teammate Rory McIlroy in 2024, but has not won an individual PGA Tour title since winning The Open all the way back in 2019. The number of PGA Tour titles Lowry has won by himself on U.S. soil? Just one, the 2015 WGC-Bridgestone Invitational, a tournament that no longer exists.
Nico Echavarri ultimately found the winner’s circle on Sunday afternoon thanks to a bogey-free 66. The Colombian may have been given not one, but two gifts courtesy of Lowry down the stretch, but Nico’s game was mighty impressive during the final round.
Casey Jarvis, You’re Headed To Augusta
Casey Jarvis began 2026 ranked 261st in the world as an unfamiliar player outside of his home country of South Africa. Less than three months into the new year, the 22-year-old is the No. 80 golfer on the planet and a winner of back-to-back events on the DP World Tour.
After putting together a clinic for a three-shot victory at the Magical Kenya Open a week ago with a final round 62, Jarvis carried that momentum into the South African Open Championship and went ahead and picked up another three-shot win.
With Augusta National changing its qualifying criteria a year ago, the South Africa Open win punched Jarvis’ ticket into next month’s Masters.
Winning an event on home soil only one week after your first DP World Tour win and having this one earn yourself a spot into the year’s first major is not a bad two-week stretch for a 22-year-old, I’d say. Jarvis will also be teeing it up in The Open later this summer thanks to his run of victories.
It’s probably a safe bet that Jarvis will be looking to play a practice round or two with fellow South African Charl Schwartzel during the lead-up to his Masters debut in April.
Anthony Kim Heads To China As A New Man
Hong Kong plays host to LIV Golf and its newest winner, Anthony Kim, this week, and to say it’s been a month for Mr. Kim would be an understatement.
Not only did he complete one of the greatest comebacks in the history of sports (yes, sports, not just golf) with his first professional win in 5,796 days last month, but he’s now no longer a guy flying under anyone’s radar. Let’s not forget he absolutely dominated Jon Rahm and Bryson DeChambeau during the final round of LIV Golf Adelaide to earn his win, he beat up on two of the best players in the game.
READ: LIV Golf Is Burning $100 Million A Month, Yet The Saudis Have Doubled Down With Even More Cash
With a very impressive win in your back pocket comes added pressure to continue to perform and be ‘one of the guys’ for LIV, which is something the circuit absolutely needs. He inked a full-time sponsorship deal with Malbon Golf following his win in Australia and is now stepping back into a legitimate spotlight, one that carries expectations, and one he hasn’t seen in more than a decade.
Based on his very active Instagram, Kim has seemingly been practicing and pounding golf balls in Asia from the moment after his victory a few weeks ago. While the odds likely point to him being a ‘flash in the pan’ player, given his hiatus from the game, injury history, and being 40-years-old, he’s doing everything he can to not fall into that category.
