Shane Lowry is four shots off the pace after the opening round of the Memorial Tournament at Muirfield Village.
Lowry, who had two sixes at par fives, still managed to get in the clubhouse with a three-under 69 although he was outdone by his playing partner Ben Griffin who roared to the summit with a 65 after missing the cut in his previous two appearances.
“I told him when we finished, Keep it going, things will turn around for you pretty soon (smiling.) He pretty much holed everything he looked at today,” said Lowry after his round. “It was good. We bounced off each other, we all played really nicely, and it’s nice when you get a good group like that. My 3-under doesn’t look that great beside his 7-under, but 3-under is a good score out there on this course, it’s pretty difficult.”
“I hit the ball in play a lot today, I hit lot of fairways, which allowed me to hit a lot of greens, so I took advantage of some good driving today.”
Hitting the fairway was of paramount importance on the opening day which makes for an ideal pre-US Open test and Lowry hit ten of fourteen fairways while he also took advantage of that to lead the field in strokes gained approach to the green.
The Offaly man made an electric start with a birdie on the second and an eagle on the par-5 7th. Missed fairways on the par fives 11 and 15 cost him shots but he rallied with birdie on 13 and 16 to share fourth place alongside US Ryder Cup captain Keegan Bradley.
“You miss a shot and you’re going probably going to make bogey. You’re going to miss some shots when you’re out there playing 18 holes. So, yeah, I missed two fairways on the par-5s and made bogeys on both without hitting it in the water. It’s just two horrendous lies and before you know it you’re making bogey on what you feel like is an easy hole.
“Yeah, there’s just no gimmies out there. There’s no holes where you feel like you can get away with one. You need to hit good shots.”
Griffin holds a two shot lead at the top over Collin Morikawa while Max Homa is a shot further back.
World number one Scottie Scheffler shares seventh on two-under.
Scoring HERE
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