While Rory McIlroy was being cut and stabbed through the gorse bushes of Troon, another son of Ireland was heading to a sofa to put his feet up.
For a man who doesn’t consider himself a great runner, Shane Lowry is making tremendous progress in the Open Championship. While others of greater stature have fallen flat on their faces, he continues to move closer to a goal he knows all too well.
With a full weekend ahead, anything can happen between now and Sunday night. In this weather and on this stretch of dirt, there are countless places Lowry could lose a ball or his head, and his trip to the 11th hole in the second round is all the proof he needs. We’ll get back to that corner of horrors in a moment.
But for now, isolated setbacks aside, the 2019 champion has been masterful in his handling of such a tough test. His 66 on Thursday, which allowed him to finish second behind the spectacular Daniel Brown, read the 69 strokes he unleashed in bursts of 35 mph to put himself two points ahead of the clubhouse on Friday.
It was a brilliant piece of work, the work of a man suited to this peculiar terrain and prepared to thrive in the recent storms that have battered the Ayrshire coast. McIlroy, Bryson DeChambeau, Tommy Fleetwood, Viktor Hovland, Cameron Smith, Ludvig Aberg and Tiger Woods are a sample of the elite names who failed to make the six-over-par cut, but Lowry was having the time of his life.
A composed display from Shane Lowry allowed the Irishman to move two shots ahead at the Open.
While stormy weather hampered his rivals, he took pole position at Royal Troon.
“We are here to lead this tournament after two days,” he said as the breeze picked up outside the press tent.
“I’ll sit down and watch some golf in the afternoon and see how it goes. The job is to try and put myself in a position to win this tournament on Sunday, and that’s what I’ll try to do.”
If anything could have disturbed his sleep on Friday night, it was the dangerous company of those below him on the big yellow markers. Five shots behind, at two under par, is world number one Scottie Scheffler after a second straight 70. He hasn’t found his best yet, but their mere presence will be especially unsettling.
Closer to home is Justin Rose, who was five under par after holing a monster 41-foot putt on the final hole and in the midst of a fabulous mission. He first caught our attention as a 17-year-old amateur in this tournament, and at 43, he has picked up enough links tricks to make up for what his age has cost him.
He only came to this course through qualifying a couple of weeks ago, but he is a genuine threat. Indeed, the 68 he compiled, improved by two birdies in his final three holes, was one better than Lowry’s round and made all the more impressive by the fact that he started later on a day that grew trickier by the hour.
With just one bogey in his two rounds, Rose has been an example of how to make clutch putts, but he hasn’t been as flashy as the man next to him in a tie for second place, Daniel Brown. If his first-round 65 was a stunning upset, given his world ranking of 272 and his experience of zero previous majors, his 72 was a testament to his resilience. The 29-year-old was expected to fall and he’s still there. Brilliant.
Lowry overcame a double bogey on the 11th to keep alive his dream of repeating his 2019 success (pictured above)
The difficulty of staying on par should not be underestimated, as time has decimated the scoreboard. While there were 17 players under par at the end of the first round, that figure was reduced to 10 towards the end of the round.
There’s no doubt Lowry had it a little easier, but he excelled. He made a nine-foot birdie at the first, a foot-for-foot 82-yard wedge at the par-five fourth and a slight slip through a greenside bunker when he bogeyed the fifth. He made up for that shot with an 11-foot putt at the eighth, but the strength of his game was in his approach play. He had those irons under tight control, cutting through the headwinds on the front nine with a canny low flight.
Lowry’s debacle – because almost everyone has had one – came on the 11th hole. He approached the railway line on the right after a slice off the tee, but after finding his ball, he missed the second. A cameraman distracted him on the backswing and his iron flew across the fairway and buried itself deep in a gorse bush.
Drama ensued. After he had played a provisional shot to the green to give himself a good chance of escaping with a bogey on the fifth hole, he was informed that his original ball had been found. Lowry could be heard expressing some exasperation, which meant he would have to take his chances with a shot to the green. After a 20-minute delay, he walked away with a double bogey.
“To be honest, I was very happy to walk away with a six,” he said. “It wasn’t a disaster, I was still leading the tournament.”
Meanwhile, Justin Rose chased him down with a solid performance to tie fellow Englishman Daniel Brown for second place.
A birdie at the 16th and a fifth of the day at the last, from 20 feet, kept him there. From a parochial perspective, it was encouraging to see Rose chasing it down after keeping his cool for several six-foot putts. Together with Brown, they are leading the challenge to stop a clock that has been ticking for 22 years since this tournament had an English winner.
“When I won the US Open in 2013, it was our first win since Tony Jacklin (1970), so it’s a good time,” Rose said. “But you never think about it; we’re quite selfish from that point of view. This was a good day.”
The same goes for Brown, the tournament’s revelation so far. “I hope I can continue to make people talk on Sunday,” he said. Bigger names have already been swept aside in that quest.