Shane Lowry made light of the difficult conditions to card a best-of-the-day five-under 65 and draw within one of leader Keith Mitchell in the Truist Championship at Philadelphia Cricket Club.
A day after 64 of the 72 players broke par in near-perfect conditions, heavy overnight rain combined with on-off showers and drastically lower temperatures, and the golf course proved a more than suitable adversary.
Lowry, who began the day three back in a share of seventh, was sublime with his approach play and now leads the field in Strokes Gained: Approach. Birdies on two, four, seven and eight set the stage, with the longest birdie putt measuring eight feet, as he ate into Mitchell’s lead and briefly found himself tied when the American dropped a shot on the 11th, just after the Offalyman had answered his one and only bogey – this coming on the 10th – with a raking 53-footer for birdie on the brutal par-4.
An excellent 30-yard bunker shot on the par-5 15th saw Lowry record his sixth birdie of the day, and he managed to par his way home as the weather turned particularly nasty, and he goes into the weekend in solo second, one ahead of Sepp Straka who has a three-shot cushion over the six-strong group sharing fourth.
“Most of the round was actually fine. It was somewhat playable,” Lowry said afterwards.
“Obviously the ball wasn’t going very far, but there wasn’t that much rain, and there wasn’t much wind as well, which was nice. I felt like the course, once you hit it in the fairways, was very scorable.
“Yeah, I’m very happy with my day. To par the last two holes — like 18 was brutal. I couldn’t reach it in two. Yeah, to make four was nice. Yeah, pretty happy with my day’s work.”
Despite his reputation as a great player in tough weather conditions, he feels that it’s more a case of being able to handle them rather than actually enjoying them.
“No. Everyone says that to me every day when it rains,” he laughed. “I live in South Florida, and I plan to be there now.
“No, I think I’m able to handle them probably better than a few people, but I don’t particularly like or enjoy going out and playing in these conditions, but yeah, I handle them well.”
Lowry will join Mitchell in Saturday’s final group, with tee times pushed back to regular scheduling and they’ll take to the tee at 7:20pm, Irish time.
The brutal weather appears to have passed, and, with the course softened, it’s likely that scoring will be low once again.
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