Shane Lowry is not intimidated by being in such a strong position after the opening two rounds of the Open Championship.
The Offaly man is currently eight under par and is in first position, tied with American golfer J.B. Holmes. He spoke to Off the Ball about his chances ahead of the third round at Portrush.
“I’ll obviously be thinking about it tonight. Look, there’s no point in shying away from it. I’m in a great position but my god have we got a long way to go. There’s two rounds in this golf course against the best field in the world.
“The one thing I have to do is just go out and I’ve been saying it all the time, I’ve been doing it great this year. I went out and shot 67 today and I need to go out and shoot the best score I can tomorrow and hopefully it leaves me in a decent position going into Sunday,” Lowry said.
No luck for Sugrue
There was disappointment for the Amateur Open champion James Sugrue as the Mallow native narrowly missed the cut.
A triple bogey on the 14th hole scuppered his chances of playing at the weekend as he ultimately finished two over par.
“I actually played pretty decent out there. I played better today than I did yesterday. So it’s fairly frustrating. One bad hole kind of just killed me. So that’s not a great feeling.
“To make triple is just heartbreaking. I don’t think I played bad enough today to shoot two over par. I don’t think it’s a reflection of how I actually played today.
“It was obviously great and everything but I came here to make the cut and play well, not to experience anything or whatever. I just came here to play good golf and today I felt like I did play good golf apart from one hole. So yeah, disappointed overall,” Sugrue said.
The amateur golfer was happy to see fellow Irishman Lowry doing so well however, and wished him luck over the next two rounds.
“He doesn’t have any weak part of his game. Best pitcher of the ball in the world, great putter, great off the tees. He’s just an all round great player and he’s a really sound lad as well. I’m absolutely delighted for him and I hope he goes all the way,” Sugrue said.
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