It had all be plain sailing for Ireland’s Shane Lowry but a lengthy ruling saw him card a costly double bogey during his second round at the Open Championship.
He would stumble in an incredible manner on the 11th hole of his second round at Royal Troon, with a hole that included a 20-minute delay due to a ruling.
It started going wrong off the tee, with his drive being pushed right into the rough. He was fortunate that it did not take a big bounce to find the wall or even go over it and out of bounds onto the railway tracks.
What would then ensue would be a 25-minute long drama…
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What actually happened to Lowry on the 11th?
The Irishman got to the 11th tee just after 12:30pm, and he held a two-shot lead in the Open Championship at that point in time.
After finding his tee shot in the right rough, Lowry then gouged his second way left. It found the thick gorse on the left side of the 11th hole. Immediately after making contact with the ball, he proceeded to get frustrated at a cameraman.
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He then dropped a second ball, and played a beautiful shot onto the green for what would have been his fourth. However, that would not be the end of the drama for the 2019 Open Champion.
A spectator found his original ball in the bushes on the left of the hole, and from that, it all kicked off. The referee was called over, and in the end, Lowry would back away to play from the next hole over.
20 minutes after hitting his second shot, the Irishman then hit his fourth on to the green, before two putting to make a double-bogey 6 and to drop back into a tie for the lead.
What did Lowry have to say about the incident?
After finishing his second round in the clubhouse lead, Lowry spoke to the media, with the main part of the conference being based on the events of the 11th.
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“I did the hard part. I hit my drive where you could find it, which is obviously a hard thing to do on that hole. I did a nice lie in the rough,” he explained.
“I got a little bit distracted on the right just as I was over the shot, and I kind of lost a bit of train of thought. You’re so afraid of going right there that I just snagged the club and went left.
“Then from there, I hit a great provisional. The referee asked me going down, did I want to find my first one, and I said no. So I assumed that was okay. Then we get down there, and somebody had found it.
“So apparently we have to find it then, or you have to go and identify it, which I thought, if you declared it lost before it was found, that you didn’t, you didn’t have to go and identify it.
“I felt like through that whole process of that 20 minutes, it was whatever it was, of taking the drop, seeing where I could drop, and I felt like I was very calm and composed and really knew that I was doing the right thing, and I felt like Darren did a great job too just kind of — he kept telling me, we have loads of time. We don’t need to rush this. We just need to do the right thing here.
“To be honest, I was happy enough leaving there with a 6. It was not like — it wasn’t a disaster. I was still leading the tournament”.
What did you make of the ruling Shane Lowry got on the 11th at the Open? What would you have done in that situation? Let us know your thoughts with a post on X, formerly Twitter!
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