Shane Lowry’s hopes of lifting The Open Championship at Royal Portrush for a second time appear to have been dashed, with the 2019 champion 10 shots off the lead at the halfway stage.
Of course, the challenge facing all of the players not named Scottie Scheffler appears to be monumental heading into the weekend at The Open Championship. Scheffler ended the day at the top of the leaderboard after the best round in a major of his career.
Unfortunately for Shane Lowry meanwhile, a difficult day ended in controversy.
Lowry was looking set to finish up at two under par for the tournament, eight shots back. However, television cameras picked up an incident on the 12th hole which resulted in a two-shot penalty.
Scottie Scheffler shares how Shane Lowry reacted to receiving a penalty during the second round of The Open Championship
Lowry’s ball appeared to move in the rough as he took a practice swing nearby.
Clearly, there was no intention from Lowry to improve his lie. However, there was little question that the ball did indeed move.
Scheffler was playing alongside the European. And following his second round, he credited Lowry for how he handled the situation.
“Ultimately in golf it’s up to the player, and I felt like Shane was put in a pretty tough situation there when they were zooming in on his golf ball. In the rough it’s hard to tell. From what I looked at very briefly on the video, it looked like it was very difficult to see if the ball was moving — sorry. If the ball moved. The camera was kind of zooming in as stuff was happening,” he said.
“One of the great things about the game of golf is that you call your penalties on yourself. This situation, I think it was just — it was a very tough spot for Shane to be put in. He handled it really well. It’s obviously very frustrating. It’s frustrating for me as a competitor of his and a player to watch him after kind of deal with that because the last thing you want to be known in the game of golf is somebody who cheats.
“I’m not going to state a strong opinion here in the media on whether or not I thought he deserved the penalty, but all I’m going to say is it was a very tough situation for him to be put in, and I thought he handled it really well.”
Scottie Scheffler assesses his outstanding second round at Royal Portrush
Scheffler was so impressive on Friday. He sent out a real statement to the rest of the field, particularly as he has already managed to win one major this year.
It is going to be incredibly difficult to stop the 29-year-old, as long as he does not make any significant errors.
The improvement in his putting has been remarkable. And following his round, he was asked about changing to the mallet and how it has allowed him to step up his game on the greens.
“At the end of last year, I always kind of assess things and see if there’s ways we can improve. That was something we tested out in the Bahamas last year and felt comfortable from the start. I use it as we get closer to the hole, lag putting. Outside of 15 to 20 feet, I’m still putting conventional,” he said.
“It was something we felt could help us improve, and so far it has.”
Scheffler put himself in a good position after the first round. But given some of the scoring earlier on Friday, some may have expected him to still leave himself with work to do to hit the front.
A 64 sends out such a strong message to the rest of those in contention. And it seems that Scheffler did not see such an impressive performance coming as he was asked whether he felt that that kind of score was out there.
“I had no idea. It all depends on conditions. When we were teeing off, depending on what weather forecast you looked at, it was going to tell you something different. It was super sunny when we were on the driving range, I’m out there in short sleeves, it’s warm out. Then we get to the 1st hole, it’s still sunny. Then all of a sudden, you look around and it’s super dark and it starts pouring rain. You’re like, boy, I wonder how long this is going to last,” he responded.
“Fortunately, it didn’t pour the whole time. We only had maybe four or five holes where it was really coming down, and I was able to take advantage of the holes where we had some good weather.”
Of course, there are 36 holes to go, and so much can change. Scheffler is not immune to the kind of round which leaves the door ever so slightly ajar for the chasing pack.
But if he gets off to a strong start on Saturday, many will feel that the engraver can probably get on with putting his name on the Claret Jug.
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