In the last few weeks Shane Lowry has been enjoying some downtime between a fascinating year on the golf course and the run-in to the end of the season.

Off The Ball and Golf Weekly's Joe Molloy caught up with him today and he looked ahead to the challenges to come later this year as well as some of the things he has been getting up to ... like playing with Ireland manager Martin O'Neill the day after the Georgia match.

"The Wednesday before that weekend, I went out to the team hotel in Castleknock with a mutual friend who's friends with Martin O'Neill and Martin rang him up and just said 'I'd love to meet Shane just for a chat' and it was nothing to do with anything other than he wanted to congratulate me on my way in and just have a chat," said Lowry.

"I played with Martin a few years ago at the JP Pro-am. It was amazing that night - you know how much of a sports fan I am - I went out there and was waiting around for Martin and Shay Given, Robbie Keane, Kevin Doyle and John O'Shea were sitting there. I had a good chat with them for half an hour and then Martin came down and then Roy Keane comes down. It was amazing. I was sitting around until 12 o'clock that night having a chat with the lads. It was one of those nights. It was amazing and the first thing I did was I rang my Dad next morning to tell him how good it was."

Lowry also looked ahead to future targets including next year's Olympics and Ryder Cup.

"If I'm in the Ryder Cup team, I'm probably in the Olympics team," he said. "That's the long-term goal."