Shane Lowry: I’ll be looking to play it straight in the RBC Heritage

Augusta was such a buzz and I made my way down to Harbour Town Golf Links for the RBC Heritage last Monday to get some practice in.

I’ve got four tournaments in six weeks and two of them are Majors, so I’ll have plenty of time to focus. I’ll get ready for them and try to sharpen my game as much as I can.

I tee off at Harbour Town on Thursday and next week I’ll play in the Zurich Classic with Padraig Harrington, so that’ll be good fun.  It can get very windy at Hilton Head, which makes the course very difficult to play.

It’s quite tight, you won’t use the driver that often and you just need to keep the ball in play.

If you can get to double figures under par, you should do well.

When you drive up the entrance you see all the names of past winners and it’s a real who’s-who of world golf. Nick Faldo, Greg Norman, Tom Watson – they’ve all won it.

More recently though, it’s the plotters and short hitters with a good game-plan who have triumphed here and not the tee-box boomers.

Graeme McDowell has won it, Jim Furyk’s been victorious twice, while Matt Kuchar and Branden Grace have also graced the winner’s rostrum. Luke Donald has an unbelievable Top 10 record around here – without winning. That’s they type of player that this course suits.

I’m still feeling optimistic about how I played last week at the Masters – despite missing the cut. I feel like I have all the shots so I just need to look at playing golf more freely and not worry about the outcome or the results.

Those last eight holes I played on Friday at Augusta were as good as I’ve played all year. That’s kind of the way I have to look at it heading into Thursday at Hilton Head.