Rose keeps Lowry in his sights after battle for survival

Down by the railroad tracks, with the Glasgow-Ayr service providing an unusual refrain to the Open, Shane Lowry had temporarily lost his cool or, as he put it, “I lost my train of thought.” He said that was not a joke, but was then asked if he was a good front-runner. “I wouldn’t say I’m a good runner,” he quipped. Anyone who could retain their sense of humour on a day of careworn expressions and windswept hopes probably has a chance.
Lowry finished his second round at Royal Troon at seven under par after a round of 69. That put him two clear of Dan Brown, the unheralded Englishman who defied the sceptics by not fading away after his twilight turn on Thursday, and Justin Rose, who went 29 holes before finally succumbing to his only bogey so far.
The conditions played into the hands of sagacious strategists who could plot a course through the wind and bunkers. Rose, now 43, fits that bill even if he had to qualify to be here. Two years ago, he slipped outside the world’s top 50 for the first time in more than a decade, but he showed he could still mix it with the bright young things and big brawny hitters at May’s US PGA Championship.
The roar that greeted his 40-foot birdie on the last green for a round of 68 was not quite up there with the aural hug when he holed out to finish fourth at Birkdale as a teenage pup, but it was loud enough to suggest the galleries will be right behind him over the weekend.
Dare he think about winning after opening a three shot advantage on the rest? “That’s the dream and I’m still living the dream,” he said. He was not about to indulge in talk of ending a 32-wait for an English winner – “we’ve got enough problems with the football” – but is relishing the test. “The yardage book is out of the window and nothing is standard,” he said. That might scare the living daylights out of the more robotic modern golfer, but Rose took it on the chin. “It tipped over the edge and the elements were in control,” he added. “I felt like it was a fair fight yesterday. Today was more survival.”
The scale of the trauma elsewhere underlined the top trio’s achievement. Cameron Smith, the 2022 Open champion, was 12 over by the close, which was two better than Tiger Woods’ latest stop on the never-ending farewell tour. Wyndham Clark, the US Open champion, could trump that and did not so much miss the cut as avoid it like the plague. He left early at an eye-watering 16 over par.
Meanwhile, Bob MacIntyre made a start of the purest calamity. In short time, the shot tracker that records the path of each stroke looked like drunken work on an Etch-a-Sketch. Simultaneously stuck in a bunker, rut and reverse gear, he lost eight shots in four holes. Mind you, Rory McIlroy lost six in four as he officially marked a decade without a major.
MacIntyre rallied to make the cut, but McIlroy was resigned to his erasing this memory long before the end. Others were also at sixes and sevens and it made you understand why old souls like John Daly, morphing into a roadhouse Santa these days, had called it quits and pulled out injured.
There have been enough common issues at Troon not to pin all the blame for McIlroy’s missed cut on scarring from his US Open collapse, but each passing major will exacerbate the importance of that squandered opportunity. On this occasion, an exodus of big names also included Tommy Fleetwood, Tyrrell Hatton, Bryson DeChambeau, Ludvig Aberg and Viktor Hovland.
Lowry was seemingly heading towards peril of his own on the 11th. The “Railway” hole involves a blind tee shot taken by the parallel lines of the train tracks. The Irishman hooked his second shot into the gorse and vented his ire at a cameraman. “As I was over the ball I could see you putting your f*ing camera up,” he groused before pointing to less distracting ground. “Just get back there, f’s sake.”
He regained his poise to play a fine provisional onto the green, raising the possibility that he could escape from this mess with only a bogey. Happy to give up the original ball as a lost cause, a spectator then found it within the three-minute time limit and so Lowry had no option but to play that, even though it put him in a worse position. “He would’ve preferred not to have found that ball,” said the watching Paul McGinley.
Much debate about where he could take the drop ensued – by the 12th fairway was the outcome – and after some 28 minutes on a one-hole epic, he laboured to a double bogey and was soon caught by Brown. “I got a little bit distracted as I was over the shot, and I kind of lost a bit of train of thought,” he said. “There was a cameraman there. He was walking up and I asked him to stop or move back. I kind of saw it out of the corner of my eye, and I should have stood off it. My own fault.”
Two birdies over the closing holes restored his lead, but the scores got worse. Brown, the world No 272, could not satisfactorily explain how he had turned a run of dismal results into a two-day tilt at the very top, but had very much enjoyed watching Lowry’s Open triumph in 2019. What stood out?
“His grit and determination. Hopefully, I’ll get to witness that first-hand and go toe to toe with him,” he said. He is not about to get star-struck, though, and referencing the quips he receives about his namesake, the author of The Da Vinci Code, he said; “Hopefully, I can make a name for myself and people will say to him, ‘Are you the golfer?’”
Scottie Scheffler is “the” golfer of the moment and is still hanging in there in the chasing pack, although he, too, appeared to be in trouble at times. His caddie, Ted Scott, was suffering with food poisoning and took to lying down on the course to recover. “He battled through,” said the world No 1 who knows a five-shot deficit is well within his vertical range.
It soon became clear it was a day for hanging on rather than anything more eye-catching as Troon triumphed again. Justin Thomas was another to grieve the passing of Thursday, and from being firmly in the mix he disappeared after going out in 45. Then he came back in 33. A baffling, ruffling scuffle.
And Woods? He followed up an opening round of 79 with a 77, which meant there were only four players below him in the field by the time he addressed the media. We were told there would be three questions, but he answered five. None of these numbers were stacking up. “It wasn’t very good,” said Woods. He spoke for the many.