Lowry left behind on moving day as Cink retains 5-shot lead

Bernie McGuire

18th April 2021

Shane Lowry will look to head to a fortnight’s competition break on a high heading to the final round of the RBC Heritage Classic in South Carolina.

The Clara star carded a one-over par round of 73 to fall 16 places down the leaderboard to a share of 27^th as Stewart Cink signed for a two-under 70 to maintain his five shot advantage at the top.

Lowry teed-on on golf’s traditional ‘moving day’ on the back of a brilliant second round 65 to move to seven-under par and just outside the top-10. However, by the time Lowry teed-up on day three of the $ 7.1m event, the reigning Open Champion was sharing 17^th place.

For a second day running Lowry got off to a great start landing a 32-feet chip shot to just two inches at the par-5 second hole to be now four-under on the hole after a birdie on day one and a brilliant eagle ‘3’ on day two.

Lowry then birdied the third hole in landing a 175-yard second shot to just over two-feet from the flag. But anyone who plays golf knows the game gives and the game also takes as Lowry could attest in finding water at the par-3 fourth hole where a day earlier he had been about two inches shy of an ace.

He found the green with his third but proceeded to two-putt from 16-feet for a double-bogey ‘5’. Lowry put that aside quickly in superbly two-putting from 14-feet for a birdie at the par-5 fifth hole.

He then parred then next six holes only to drop a shot at the par-4 12^th to now be back to level for his round before, for a second time in three rounds, he bogeyed 17 ahead of a closing par.

The effort leaves him 12 shots behind Cink who has moved to 18-under par, five clear of Collin Morikawa (-13) with Emiliano Grillo (-12) in third and Matt Wallace and Sungjae Im sharing fourth at 11-under.

“I was in this situation one time about 17 years ago at Firestone in what used to be the Bridgestone World Golf Championship,” said Cink, attempts to join Davis Love III (5) and Hale Irwin (3) with three or more victories at the RBC Heritage.

“I remember sleeping little that night, and I’m a little different person now, and I think I’m treating this whole tournament with a little bit more gratitude, Reagan caddying and all that stuff, and it’s been sort of a stop and sort of pinch myself along the way and enjoying it more than I’m fretting over it.

“But it’ll still be a roller coaster tomorrow emotionally, and it’s going fun challenge to embrace that instead of fighting against it, creating some kind of a conflict.”