Shane Lowry, an Irishman who grew up not too far from Royal Portrush, shot an under-fire 1-over 72 to finish at 15 under and win the 148th Open Championship by six over Tommy Fleetwood in Northern Ireland, which hosted this major for the first time in 68 years.

Lowry actually won the event with a 63 on Saturday and then held on for dear life Sunday as the wind and the field tried their best to blow him out to sea. For a couple of moments, it looked as if that might happen. But it never got serious.

Lowry hit a shaky bullet off the first tee that hooked into the rough and labored for bogey from there. If the man who was up four to start the day was going to be caught, it would be because he fell apart early on. It didn't happen. He rebounded strong by playing the next six holes in 3 under.

When the wind and rain started pounding players down the leaderboard as the Lowry-Fleetwood twosome reached the back nine, Lowry stumbled again. He bogeyed three of his first four there, but nobody could mount a charge. The last five groups (not including Lowry) played the course in 41 over. Nobody played it under par. That's obviously problematic when Lowry was hovering around par throughout. 

The knockout blow came at No. 15. Lowry made birdie to kick it to 15 under and a six-stroke lead with three to play. It's hard to blow a four-stroke lead in the final round. It's almost impossible to blow a six-stroke lead with three to play.

A tie for third (-7), marks five top-10s in majors since the start of 2018 for Finau, who maintained his status among the best scorers at the Open Championship in recent years with no rounds over par. 

With a tie for fourth (-6), Brooks Koepka joins Jack Nicklaus, Tiger Woods, Rickie Fowler and Jordan Spieth as the only golfers to finish in the top-five of all four majors in a given year. If there was any doubt as to who has the lead in the Player of the Year race, Koepka's performance and contention here has put that conversation to bed. 

A round of unfortunate bounces started with the worst of breaks, an ominous sign of struggles to come in Rickie Fowler's push to chase down Lowry. Fowler's tee shot at 1 was slightly off line and initially bounced in bounds before hitting a marshal and bouncing out of bounds. The penalty resulted in a double-bogey for Fowler, sending him on his way to a final round 74. 

A top ten finish (-4), Patrick Reed's best-ever Open finish, and it's enough evidence to suggest that he's started to find something special late in the year. Seems fitting that Captain America would peak later in the year, getting his "A" game ready for the Presidents Cup in December.