Shane Lowry had an early alarm call on Saturday morning as he returned to Augusta National to restart his second round from the 14th fairway.
Having played two shots in a gusty conditions on Friday afternoon Lowry was quite happy to have had play stopped, although he did face a tricky second shot on 14 to start his day.
“I hit my second shot on 13 in it (yesterday) and then my tee shot on 14. So we only played like only two shots in the wind. So I was pretty happy we were called in. With the way the wind was gusting an awful lot that second shot on 14 was going to be difficult.
Lowry made an outstanding par save on the par-5 15th after laying up and hitting wedge over the back of the green before chipping to kick-in distance. He followed that up with another escape on the 17th after an errant tee shot and two good putts got the job done, before a drive and four-iron to the front of the 18th green and an up-and-down secured a closing par and he was pretty happy with his days work.
“Yeah, 15 was very important because I hit a good shot into 14, missed a good chance there. And coming out I probably would have taken five pars off you if you would have given me this morning. It’s pretty difficult. Because you could have went out there this morning, made a couple of bogeys and feel like you were out of the tournament.
“And the chip on 15 was pretty good. That was really good.
“And then 17 it was probably the only bad drive I hit all day and all round, really. I was behind some trees and just, I had to move it about 50 yards in the air with a 5-iron. Hit a pretty good shot onto the green and lovely 2-putt there.
“And then the up-and-down on 18 was pretty nice to finish the day.
“So it would have nice or it would have been disappointing to make a bogey there considering how I played that second round. But, yeah, I’m pretty happy with the way things are going.”
Lowry finds himself eight shots off the leader Brooks Koepka and while it’s impossible to predict what the winning score will be given the unpredictability of the weather, he still feels he’s in the tournament and will be looking for a good third round.
“I still feel like I’m in the tournament. I know I’m eight behind, but I’m hanging around there.
“I probably should have been better over the last two days. It is disappointing to see, you know, Brooks obviously get out in some nice weather and play some really, really good golf and got to 12-under.
“So Rahmbo’s doing a good job of trying to catch him. But you know today, this afternoon is going to be very tough and the scoring’s going to be very tough. So in a way it helps the chasers. I think if we can go out and shoot 70 or better this afternoon we can have a chance going into tomorrow.
“Like someone’s going to go out and shoot 67. That would be a great score. If you managed to break 70 this afternoon in these conditions it will be a pretty good score.”
And when asked whether he thought players would take 12-under for the tournament right now? The answer was typically jovial… “I would anyway. (Laughing.) Yeah.”
“Yeah, I don’t know. It depends how Brooks and Rahm, they’re two of the best players in the world are up there, depends how they play. If they could go out and go away from the field this afternoon then it could be a two-horse race or they could come back to us and we all could have a chance. So you just don’t know.”
Leave a comment