Midway through the second round of the 152nd Open Championship on Friday at Royal Troon, Irishman Shane Lowry made it through a near-accident at hole eleven and then birdied two of his final three holes to take the lead into the clubhouse.
With a two-putt birdie at the par-5 16th hole and a 20 1/2-foot putt at the 18th, Lowry shot 2-under-par 69 to move up to 7-under 135 for the weekend in Troon, South Ayrshire, Scotland. Lowry won the 2019 Open.
Daniel Brown, the Englishman leading the 18-hole competition, is now two shots behind him having shot one-over 72 to fall to five under.
I’ve done this before, so I know it will be a hard day on Saturday,” Lowry remarked. “Who knows if I’m going to be leading at the end of the day when I walk out there leading the tournament? Will probably be under these circumstances, but we’ll have to wait and see.”
Lowry blasted a temporary ball onto the green at the par-4 11th after losing his second shot in the rough. Then he discovered his original ball, and by law he had to play it. Between shoots, Lowry needed twenty minutes to decide whether to take a penalty shot or a drop. He double bogeyed back to 5 under after hitting a blind shot over some shrubs onto the green.
When asked whether I wanted to find my first one by the referee as we were going down, I responded no. “I presumed that was acceptable,” Lowry remarked. As we descended, we discover that it has been discovered by someone. I had assumed that if you had declared it missing before it was discovered, you wouldn’t have needed to go and identify it, but it appears that we have to find it then or you have to go and identify it.
To be honest, I was content enough to receive a six when I left there. Nothing about it was disastrous. Even yet, I continued to lead the competition.
At 3 under after 12 holes of his second round, Englishman Justin Rose was in third place. He launched his first offensive play.
First-ranked Scheffler of the world shot a 70 to share the lead at 2 under with South Africa’s Dean Burmester (69) and Billy Horschel (68). Scheffler reached three under par after making a 35-foot birdie putt at the par-3 14th and another birdie at No. 16; however, he found a pot bunker off the tee on the 18th hole and ended with a bogey.
Xander Schauffele (72), Patrick Cantlay (68), Jason Day (68) of Australia, and Corey Conners (70) of Canada are in the clubhouse at 1 under after two rounds.
Prominent athletes that teed off in the afternoon wave include Bryson DeChambeau, the winner of the U.S. Open, Jon Rahm of Spain, and Rory McIlroy of Northern Ireland. Justin Thomas was in third position at the start of the day at 3 under, but he fired a horrendous 9-over 45 on his front nine, which included a triple bogey at No. 9, to fall out of contention.
Tiger Woods missed the cut in his third consecutive major after closing the first two rounds at 14 over on Friday after opening at 79.