Shane Lowry believes he’s playing for pride now after the putts failed to drop and a second successive level par 71 left him 11 shots behind clubhouse leader Xander Schauffele in the Men’s Olympic Golf Competition in Paris.
The Offaly man needed a good start at Le Golf National, but instead dropped an early shot at the par-five third and while he made birdies at the fourth and seventh, another bogey at the tough 17th left him in the bottom half of the field.
“Today it was pretty similar to yesterday and I never really got anything going,” a crestfallen Lowry told RTE Sport. “It was a bit of a boring round and, yeah, disappointing, but what can you do? I tried my hardest, but I said I wasn’t good enough.
“I gave myself a lot of chances, but my putter was cold, and the leaders were flying away. I’ve probably given myself way too much to do, so I’m playing for pride this weekend now.
“I’ll go away this afternoon and reflect on the last two days. Then, I’ll give it a go over the next two days and try to get myself as far up the leaderboard as I can.”
While Lowry got a shot back at the 503-yard fourth, rolling in a 17-footer for birdie, he had to make a 10-footer just to save par at the fifth after finding more rough from the tee.
But after missing an 11-footer for a birdie at the sixth, he got into the red for the tournament with a spectacular birdie at the seventh, where he fired a 213-yard approach to 15 feet and brushed in the putt.
He couldn’t birdie the par-five ninth or convert chances from around 15 feet at the 10th and 11th and another poor drive forced him to settle for par at the 541-yard 14th.
The last four holes are fraught with danger, but after two more mid-range chances failed to drop at the 15th and 16th, Lowry missed an eight-footer for par at the tough 17th after another missed fairway — his seventh of the day — forced him to lay up.
He finished his day by making a good two-putt par from 55 feet at the 18th but a second successive, level par 71 leaves the Co Offaly man with a lot of work to do over the weekend to close the gap on the top three.
“I just needed a bit of momentum really, you hole one or two and then you’re off and running,” Lowry said of his putting. “I felt like I did hole a good one for par and a good one for birdie as well and then you know from there on I just kept on hitting until 20 feet all day and never really holed anything.
“I was burning the edge well and the frustrating thing is I didn’t feel like I was hitting bad putts, I just struggled to read the greens.
“But that’s that’s golf; that’s the way it is unfortunately. It happened last few days for me and what can I do?”
He added: “The one thing you need to do around this course is take care of the par fives and I’ve played them in one over today. If I play them the way you showed, it’s a different day. But that’s golf.
“I’ve been playing par fives really well all year. I’ve been putting really well the last few months. It’s just unfortunate for me that it’s deserted me over the last couple of days.”
Lowry was still full of praise for the large Irish gallery that followed him around,
“It was incredible to see the Irish support,” he said. There are a lot of tricolours out there—a lot more than I expected. The support we’ve gotten over the last couple of days is great.
“I was on the ninth green when Rory was announced on the first tee and you can hear that cheer pretty loudly.
“The Irish fans have been amazing. But you know, we do have the best fans in the world and everywhere we go, they always travel with us and everywhere I play, there’s always people that watch me from Ireland and I appreciate it a lot.
“But you know, I’m disappointed I couldn’t put up a better performance in for them today.”
Reigning Olympic champion Schauffele added a five-under 66 to his opening 65 to lead in the clubhouse by two shots from Jon Rahm, who shot 66, on 11-under.
Belgium’s Thomas Detry posted an eight-under 63, matching first round leader Hideki Matsuyama, to jump into fifth alongside 2020 bronze medallist CT Pan, who shot 65, on eight-under.
