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Shane Lowry carded a course-record 62 at Trump International Doonbeg to lead the Irish Open by three shots at 11-under-par, while Rory McIlroy struggled on the greens.
Shane Lowry shot a course-record eight-under-par 62 at Trump International Doonbeg on Friday to take a three-shot lead at the Amgen Irish Open, moving to 11-under-par 129 at the halfway point.
The 39-year-old Offaly man produced a mesmerising display between the sandhills, with a front nine of 30 and a back nine of 32. Lowry briefly raised hopes of a 59 through 12 near-flawless holes before closing out his record round. He finished three shots clear of his nearest challengers. The round was highlighted by nine birdies and just one bogey, a three-putt bogey on the 13th.
That was a rare blip with the putter in hand. Pádraig Harrington had predicted Lowry's strong week, saying it was the best version of him he had seen. Lowry lived up to that billing in glorious conditions. Asked if this was what Harrington meant, Lowry laughed: This is definitely up there.
It is one of the better rounds of golf that I have ever played. From the moment he hit his opening drive at 9.40am, Lowry looked like a man totally at ease. Once the first birdie putt dropped on the third hole, moments of frustration were few and far between.
Even a horrible break on the par-five 10th, where his approach got caught in long stuff short of the green, ended as his personal highlight: a Houdini-esque escape to save par from 10 feet and keep momentum rolling into the back nine. His only dropped shot of the day, a tricky four-footer for par on the 13th, was met with eyes raised to heaven and a rueful shrug.
But that one moment aside, broad smiles were the order of the day. I played great, he said. Every time I kept making birdie, I just kept going, wanting to birdie the next. I felt like I was pretty in control out there, so it was good fun out there.
It has been a while since I have had that much fun on the golf course, so I will take it. After the gruelling endurance test of Thursday's glacially-slow opening round, Friday was an entirely different proposition. The three- or four-club wind that Lowry and others faced on Thursday was considerably more benign, though not totally absent, for Friday morning's early wave. There were still some traffic jams to contend with, though nothing like the opening-round gridlock.
On the few occasions when play did slow, Lowry was relaxed, bouncing off playing partners Jon Rahm and Patrick Reed, who shot 67 and 68 respectively. Both will feel they could have gone even lower. Lowry's first birdie chance slipped by at the second, but his record-breaking round sparked into life with a sublime approach to the third. He tucked it into a postage stamp landing zone to the left of a front-left pin, feeding down to within four feet.
A few hundred early risers had staked out their spot around the third green, and Lowry did not disappoint. Waiting a few yards away on the fourth tee box, Rory McIlroy, Robert MacIntyre and Brooks Koepka would not have been left wondering who the crowd were roaring on. That was the catalyst for a remarkable run of seven birdies across Lowry's next nine holes.
Rahm deserved an assist at the very least on the fourth, the Spaniard's uphill putt giving Lowry the measure of his own 23-footer, which he judged to perfection. Doonbeg's fifth green, protected by soaring dunes, is the kind of natural amphitheatre which is this course's calling card.
As young and old watched on, Lowry went straight at the flag into the teeth of the wind, leaving himself with little more than a foot for a third straight birdie to move into the outright lead on six-under. When Rahm looked incredulously at the amount of right-to-left break on his missed birdie putt at the sixth, it may have prompted Lowry into some second thoughts.
His own birdie putt, a 17-footer, started and stayed high, leaving a tap-in for a tidy par. The par-three seventh is one of the few areas on the course with a greenside grandstand, as well as a greenside bar, and Lowry gave the fans what they came for, sinking his longest putt of the day, a 24-footer from back to front. If four birdies in five holes had the adrenaline flowing, Lowry did not let it show.
As the gallery expanded around him, and the number of kids with arms outstretched increased, he fed off the energy without allowing it to verge into distraction. There would be plenty of time for high-fives when all was said and done. That composure served him in good stead when he found himself way right off the tee, caddy Dermot Byrne helping him to unpick a situation that could have quickly turned into trouble.
With 107 to one of the right fairway bunkers, Byrne gave the yardage before quickly reminding Lowry that there is no point bringing that trap into play. How do you think it is going to come out? Lowry asked, inspecting the spectator-trampled lie. Decent.
Spinny, Byrne replied, leaving Lowry with his five-iron and a parting reminder to commit to it. It came out as expected, finishing a foot or two short of the bunker in question, giving Lowry the angle to attack the pin for another birdie which stretched his lead out to three shots. He wrapped up the front nine with another birdie to go out in six-under par 30, sending a dart to inside two feet.
For his part, Rahm finished out his front nine with a very different perspective, three-putting for bogey and then firing his golf ball out onto the empty beach below. Lowry's par save on the 10th was every bit as important as any of the nine birdies on the card, and both player and caddy knew it, sharing a quick fist bump on the side of the green after conjuring their way out of trouble.
Lowry's 62 broke the previous course record at Doonbeg and gave him a three-shot lead over the field. The round was in some ways reminiscent of how he took control of the 2019 Open en route to lifting the Claret Jug at Royal Portrush. Lowry has a magnetic pull when his putter behaves like a magic wand. The large galleries flocked to witness some wonderful golf which had him contemplating the possibility of a sub-60 round.
He even got to meet the GAA lads afterwards, as Mayo's All-Ireland winning footballers Ryan O'Donoghue and Aidan O'Shea were among those following his progress. On a sunny, calmer day, which offered the opportunity of low scores, with the course set up to facilitate a speedier pace of play, nobody took advantage of the conditions more than Lowry, who has resumed tournament play on this side of the Atlantic after a disappointing end to his PGA Tour season.
Lowry's putting – his work with putting guru Stephen Sweeney evident in a crisp, smooth roll – reaped dividends time and time again as he had a hat-trick of birdies from the third, including a 22-footer on the fourth, and another hat-trick from the seventh, which started with a bomb from 25 feet. He turned in 30 strokes.
The trip homeward wasn't as fruitful, coming back in 32 strokes: Lowry successfully scrambled a par on the 10th but then had back-to-back birdies on the 11th and 12th before he suffered his lone bogey on the 13th, three-putting from 18 feet. He then rolled in a 20-footer for birdie on the 15th and parred home. A 62 it was, a new course record.
I just did a really good job of being aggressive and being patient at the same time and taking my chances when I got them, admitted Lowry. Lowry's scorecard recorded the lowest round of a day which had a plethora of scores in the 60s, with Haotong Li's 63 moving the Chinese golfer to eight-under 132 while Danes Jacob Skov Olesen and Niklas Norgaard shot 64s to join him on that mark, three shots adrift of the leader.
It's night and day, remarked Olesen, laughing, of the contrasting conditions between the two days. It was very different. Now it's blowing to where you feel like you can control almost all of your shots. Tom McKibbin tees off the second in the second round of the Irish Open.
Photo: INPHO/Ben Brady If the forecast materialises, players in the third round will again face changing conditions with heavy rain and strong winds anticipated which may leave the tournament officials with little option than to have safe, easier pin placements towards the middle of greens rather than tempting fate by putting them on the edges. Of the 10 Irish players who started the tournament, four survived the cut.
Tom McKibbin remained very much in contention with a fine 67 for five-under 135 inside the top-10; Rory McIlroy, who couldn't buy a putt for love nor money, posted another 69 for 138, and 26-year-old Galwayman Liam Nolan, making the most of his invite to make his DP World Tour debut, shot a 68 for 140. McKibbin's improved putting since working with Stephen Sweeney has given him a renewed confidence not just on the greens but throughout his game.
The 23-year-old Northern Irishman started birdie-birdie to get off to a flying start, ultimately signing for a 67 to improve his opening round by one shot. It's exciting, to go into the weekend there or thereabouts will certainly be fun, said McKibbin of chasing a second career win on the DP World Tour and also looking to improve his Race to Dubai position.
McIlroy's putting was again his Achilles heel, after back-to-back 69s left him nine shots adrift of Lowry heading into the weekend and aware there is no quick fix. I just didn't have it on the greens. I really struggled to read them. It's hard whenever you struggle to read them, and then when you do get over the ball you're trying to trust what you're seeing, he explained.
In this edition of the Irish Open like no other, a year before the centenary tournament will be celebrated at The K Club, Lowry – who has shown his ability to win on links terrain, most notably in winning his only national open as an amateur at Baltray in 2009 and then his career highlight of capturing the Claret Jug at Royal Portrush in 2019 – is the man leading the way.
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IrishTimes:This story was compiled and edited by the HeadTopics newsroom and HT AI from the reports above.
Golf Irish Open Padraig Harrington Shane Lowry Shane's World Trump International Golf Links Course Record 62 Pádraig Harrington Course Record Rory Mcilroy
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