Watch: Rory McIlroy belts out 1980s rock classic on karaoke after victory with Shane Lowry

Rory McIlroy believes a drunken lunch could help him back onto the major trail after he and Shane Lowry lifted the Zurich Classic title in dramatic scenes on Sunday night.

Certainly, the duo’s victory anthem, “Don’t Stop Believin’” seemed appropriate and the fact that McIlroy took the microphone on stage at TPC Louisiana and led the singing highlighted his joy at beating Martin Trainer and Chad Ramey in a play-off.

It is fair to say that his swing is more rhythmic than his vocals, but that did not hold him back in his rendition of the 1980s karaoke classic by Journey.

“The reason that Shane and I both started to play golf is because we thought it was fun and reinjecting a little bit of that fun back into it on a week like this can always help,” McIlroy said.

“There was also some pressure coming down the stretch and that will stand us in good stead [for the rest of the season]. But yeah, I’ve always felt like I play my best golf when I’m enjoying myself. I’m so glad we decided to do this.”

The all-Irish partnership – McIlroy from the north, Lowry from the south – first stemmed from when they were in the island’s amateur team as teenagers. They have been friends ever since and a few weeks after the last year’s Ryder Cup win in Rome they met for another celebration.

“We had this really drunken lunch and I said ‘you wanna play the Zurich together?’” McIlroy told golf.com. “And we were like, ‘yeah, let’s do it’. It’s my debut in the event and I’ve been really excited.”

It was nervy at the end of regulation, with the pair one behind Trainer and Ramey, the French-American team who had shot a remarkable 63 in the alternate-shot format, going down the 18th. But McIlroy conjured a brilliant chip to allow Lowry to make the birdie that enforced the shoot-out. After waiting four hours for the play-off it was perhaps no surprise when Trainer and Ramey bogeyed the first extra hole. “I felt for them,” McIlroy said.

Lowry was generous enough to concede “Rory carried me a lot of the way” and although it is difficult to judge in a pairs tournament – they played two rounds of fourball and two of foursomes – the world No 2’s form did appear improved. Since winning the Dubai Desert Classic in January, McIlroy has endured an indifferent spell, which has featured only one top 10 in the eight individual PGA Tour events he has played.

McIlroy was concerned enough to enlist the assistance of legendary swing coach Butch Harmon and it is a move that looks to be paying off. Of course his detractors will dismiss this triumph – for which they each earned more than £1 million – and criticise the bonus Lowry received by gaining entry to the PGA tour’s next three $20 million (£15.9 million) “Signature Events”. Yet that will bother neither.

“To win any PGA Tour event is very cool, but to do it with one of your closest friends – we’ve known each other for a long, long time, probably like over 20 years – and to think about where we met and where we’ve come from and to be on this stage and do this together… Well, it’s just been a really, really cool journey that we’ve been a part of,” McIlroy said.

The 35-year-old now takes a week off and will then appear at the Wells Fargo Championship at Quail Hollow – where he has won three times – before going straight to the season’s second major. The US PGA is at Valhalla and the last time it was staged at the Louisville layout was 10 years ago. That was the most recent of McIlroy’s four major victories.

Luke Donald, the Europe captain, will surely have taken notice as he thinks towards next year’s Ryder Cup in New York. McIlroy and Lowry have partnered each other before in the biennial dust-up, in a 4&3 fourballs loss to Harris English and Tony Finau. But this success will surely negate the memory of that dispiriting reversal in 2021.