Irishman Shane Lowry survived a misadventure at No. 11 and birdied two of his final three holes to enter the clubhouse with the lead midway through the second round of the 152nd Open Championship on Friday at Royal Troon.
Lowry’s two-putt birdie at the par-5 16th hole and his 20 1/2-foot putt at the 18th gave him a 2-under-par 69, putting the 2019 Open champion at 7-under 135 heading into the weekend in Troon, South Ayrshire, Scotland.
He has a two-shot edge over 18-hole leader Daniel Brown of England, who posted a 1-over 72 to drop to 5 under, and Justin Rose. Rose birdied two of the final three holes in the second round and, like Brown, earned his spot in the Open field as a qualifier.
“I know (Saturday) is going to be a long day, but I’ve done it before,” Lowry said. “Going out there leading the tournament, who knows if I’m going to be leading by the end of the day? With these conditions, probably will be, but we’ll have to wait and see.”
At the par-4 11th, Lowry’s second shot got lost in the rough, and he hit a provisional ball onto the green. Then his original ball was found, and by rule he was required to play it. It took 20 minutes between shots for Lowry to make the decision to take a penalty stroke and a drop. He hit a blind shot over some shrubbery onto the green and double bogeyed back to 5 under.
“The referee asked me going down, did I want to find my first one, and I said no. So I assumed that was OK,” Lowry said. “Then we get down there, and somebody had found it. So apparently we have to find it then, or you have to go and identify it, which I thought, if you declared it lost before it was found, that you didn’t, you didn’t have to go and identify it.
“… To be honest, I was happy enough leaving there with a 6. It was not like — it wasn’t a disaster. I was still leading the tournament.”
Rose made his first bogey of the tournament at the 12th, the hole Scheffler said was playing more difficult than the other 17 on Friday because of wind gusts exceeding 30 mph.
World No. 1 Scheffler carded a 70 to join a tie at 2 under with Billy Horschel (68) and South Africa’s Dean Burmester (69). Scheffler holed a 35-foot birdie putt at the par-3 14th and added a birdie at No. 16 to get to 3 under, but he found a pot bunker off the 18th tee and finished up with a bogey.
In the clubhouse at 1 under through two rounds are Xander Schauffele (72), Patrick Cantlay (68), Australia’s Jason Day (68) and Canada’s Corey Conners (70).
Notable players who teed off in the afternoon wave include Northern Ireland’s Rory McIlroy, Spaniard Jon Rahm and U.S. Open winner Bryson DeChambeau. Justin Thomas began the day in third place at 3 under but shot a disastrous 9-over 45 on his front nine, capped by a triple bogey at No. 9, to plummet out of contention.
Tiger Woods followed an opening 79 with a 6-over 77 Friday to finish the two rounds at 14 over, missing the cut at his third straight major.
–Field Level Media
