LOUISVILLE, Ky. – Shane Lowry couldn’t get the honor.
He’d made birdie on four of the first five holes and yet his fellow playing competitor, Justin Rose, had matched him stroke for stroke. Walking off the fifth green, Lowry turned to Rose and said, “What am I going to have to do to get the honor off you today?”
It took a birdie at No. 9, his sixth of the day, to do so and spurred him to a record-tying Saturday at Valhalla Golf Club. Lowry birdied half his holes, making a career-best 161 feet, two inches of putts, and tied a record with the fifth 62 in major championship history. The 37-year-old Irishman narrowly missed an 11-foot birdie putt at 18, the easiest hole on course, to be the first to shoot 61.
“Probably the most disappointed anyone can ever be shooting 62,” he said. “I knew what was at stake.”
Lowry was part of the winning team at the Zurich Classic of New Orleans three weeks ago with Rory McIlroy, but conceded that McIlroy did the heavy-lifting. All year, Lowry has been striking the ball as well as ever but his putter has betrayed him. Finally, he became so fed up he switched to a TaylorMade Spider Tour Z putter in New Orleans, went back to some old putting drills and tried to putt more instinctively.
“I’ve sort of felt all season that if I could warm my putter up that I could be dangerous,” he said.
PGA: Tournament hub | Sunday tee times | Photos
During the first two rounds of the PGA Championship, Lowry’s putter carried him into the weekend at 4-under 138, while he termed his tee-to-green game “probably the worst I’ve played in a long time.” So, on Friday afternoon, he headed to the range with his coach and sorted out his swing. It was simply an alignment issue.
“I was set up too far left and all sorts of bad things happen for me when I do that,” he explained.
Eight strokes behind 36-hole leader Xander Schauffele, Lowry figured getting into double digits and shooting 65 would be a good target score. He did even better than that. Four birdies in a row starting at the second, including a 20-footer at the fourth, lifted his confidence as he and Rose fed off each other.
“There was definitely that urgency to feel like you wanted to stay on track and keep up the momentum today to try to give yourself a shot going into tomorrow,” he said. “It was the classic moving day, and job well done.”
Soft greens and a warm, sun-soaked day made for ideal scoring conditions. “Gettable,” is how Lowry described…
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