Shane Lowry was full of praise for the R & A following the recent Open Championship spectator news despite his own huge disappointment of his four-round showing in the U.S. Open at Torrey Pines.
After the high of a month ago when he superbly shared fourth place at the PGA Championship, Lowry turned his back on the brutal South Course with scores of 74, 72, 74 and a shock closing eight-over par 79 for a 13-over par tally.
His disappointment was mirrored in three-putting the 72nd green for a double-bogey ‘7’ and with his last day tally matching his highest U.S. Open round when he signed for a second round 79 in missing the cut at the 2018 U.S. Open at Shinnecock Hills.
Lowry also ended a 30th round of his ninth U.S. Open without a single final day birdie and a scorecard showing seven bogeys and the last hole double to head to the clubhouse sharing 65th place in the remaining 71-player field.
He walked from the last green just as fellow Irishman Rory McIlroy was heading down the first and looking to end a seven-years major’s drought in capturing a second U.S. Open trophy.
Lowry’s next event will be July 1st to 4th Dubai Duty Free Irish Open and his last tournament ahead of the defence of his Open Championship title a fortnight later at Royal St. George’s.
“All I am thinking about is getting back home to Ireland as I haven’t been back for quite a few months since Christmas, it will be nice to get back home to see all my family and friends, he said.
“Then I’ve got the Irish Open the following week and then I will head over to Royal St. George’s two weeks later to defend The Open which is going to be pretty cool.
“It’s great the R & A has announced that there will be 32,000 spectators allowed in per day which is great as there will be full grandstands and a real Open atmosphere, so that’s going to be nice, and I am really excited about that.”
Though there was not much excitement for Lowry on day four along the cliff top course overlooking the Pacific Ocean with the longest club in Lowry’s bag delivering the most hurt and with the Clara golfer finding just half of Torrey’s 14 fairways on day four.
A day earlier, Lowry was clearly annoyed in seeing his approach shot into the 18th, spin back into the water for a closing bogey in a three-over par 74 and now for a second day running the last hole again jumped-up to maul the Irishman.
The start of his last round was no brighter than the end to his third day when after splitting the opening fairway, Lowry sent his second into a greenside bunker en route to a bogey ‘5’.
Lowry then proceeded to bogey the sixth and eighth holes to make the turn at three-over and then in a horror stretch he bogeyed 13, 14 and then in finding the front of the green at the par-3 16th, he three-putted for the sixth bogey of his round ahead of more hurt at the last.
“This week just wasn’t my week,” Lowry said. “I came here to Torrey Pines, made the cut, got kicked in the nuts a few times around the golf course. It was just hard. I feel like my game is in decent shape and even though I was out there shooting 79 today, I don’t think I should go away and look into that too much because this golf course was just hard today.”
