Shane Lowry throws the ball into the crowd after birdieing the 18th on Friday.
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TROON, Scotland — We spent the last week and a half listening to the pros talk about golf in a different way. Turf is hard, wind is hard, bunkers are like that jars – links golf takes something different, so they work to be different.
Most are using last week's Scottish Open as a good warm-up. They arrived in Edinburgh bleary-eyed, cheering for the shuttle to the Renaissance Club – a clean, modern course – and grinding the sharp edges on their edges. They practice odd shots from fescue, splashes from the lips of bunkers, and tees with all kinds of clubs. They all do it in sync, and, as students prepare for the same test. That must be the right way, he thinks. Well, maybe they should follow Shane Lowry's line.
Lowry, our 37-year-old Open Championship leader, has been fine-tuning his links game, just like everyone else. But he was doing it somewhere else. Remarkably, he was doing it here, slowly.
That's the slang he used Friday, common in this part of the world, short for investigation.
Lowry – along with last week's Scottish Open champion, Bob MacIntyre – left America a few weeks ago and visited Royal Troon in early July. Mother Nature paid them back for their commitment, offering “mental states,” according to one Team Lowry member. Over two days, Lowry said he saw the course 'in all possible winds. Most of the field complained about not being prepared for the unusual conditions that came up in round 1. Lowry pulled down his hat and shot a 66.
That goes along with doing your homework. Tiger Woods didn't do his. The LIV guys were in the south of Spain, where people go on their honeymoon. Wyndham Clark's final round of 62 at the Renaissance turned into a 78-80 game here on the other side of the country.
Lowry was so pleased with his redemption that he posted what now appears to be a warning on Instagram, a video of him walking a driver, 3-iron on the 18th hole with the wind and rain beating on his shirt. “Bad day for shorts,” the text said, even though he was wearing them. What he didn't tell you – as the person with the camera said “yeah, stop flying” – was that driver, the 3-iron ended up off the green.
From Troon, Lowry went home, to Ireland – a trip he doesn't get very often these days. But like MacIntyre, home can feel special after a long season of grinding in America.
“I always really enjoy my week in Ireland the week before the Open,” said Lowry, “and I get to go around and play the links and hang out with my friends. I feel like that puts me in a good state of mind to go to a big tournament.”
He said that twice on Friday afternoon. Conceptual framework.
“This week in my head it feels like that – when I think I'm ready to take on what's coming, I've taken what's been given to me from the outside. I'm almost ready – whatever is thrown at me, I feel like I'm ready to take it on the chin and move on.”
In addition to wedge grinds and small shots and avoiding bunkers, that it's what defines golf as it sounds. Take what is offered. The vision was never clearer Friday afternoon, when Lowry turned the wind to finish, holding a two-shot lead. He left his 11th tee shot to the right, into the fescue, and let his mind wander, just for a moment, to the photographer kneeling at the top of the fairway.
A few seconds later, Lowry sent his ball hooking to the left. It flew a little more than 100 yards, bounced over the heads of the spectators and landed so slowly in the tree behind them that most did not even notice it. Lowry blurted out the appropriate word, a four-letter word with an Irish accent, then chided a nearby photographer for walking into his eyes while on the ball.
Could she pause her process to refocus? That regrets that he will play tonight as he enjoys leading everything to himself. Friday's 69 would have been 67. But what followed was a formulaic procedure, almost disturbing to the patient. The temporary ball, received, goes from the yard to the next fairway, down the rough, and then down the new yard. In the end – with Scottie Scheffler stretching back to the fairway to stay warm – a careful swing to the green and a down and up 6.
“I felt like in the whole process of that 20 minutes – whatever it was – of taking the drop, seeing where I could fall, and I felt like I was calm and steady and I really knew I was doing the right thing, too. I felt like Darren did a great job, too – he kept telling me, we have plenty of time. We must not rush this. We just need to do the right thing here.“
He followed that foul by playing driver, then a 4-iron to 32 feet on the 12th. “Best two shots I've hit all week,” he said later. It started with two back-to-back bounces that moved him into a solo lead, and something he had in 2019 when he won the Open: a very late tee time. 5 hours during the quarter that comes after breakfast, lunch, again the afternoon meal. Another test of patience. First of a bunch this weekend.
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