Lowry weathers San Diego storms; Dunne clinging on
Paul Dunne battling home
Paul Dunne must return to Torrey Pines today to complete the weather-ravaged Farmers Insurance Open.
But you get the feeling that Shane Lowry hopes Brandt Snedeker’s amazing final round 69 gives the American victory at Torrey Pines.
Like Lowry, Snedeker managed to finish his fourth round on a stop-start day of 50mph winds, squally rain and generally awful West of Ireland style conditions in San Diego.
But while Lowry’s brilliant, closing 73, which gave him a one over par aggregate of 289, was the second best score of the fourth round after Snedeker’s superb 69.
And while it left the Clara man tied for 18th, he might have hoped for a backdoor Top 10 finish had play not been suspended until today,
Snedeker leads in the clubhouse on six under par after a final round 69 that saw him play the back nine in an incredible four under 32.
To put Snedeker’s rounds in perspective, of the 32 finished rounds, his was the best by four shots from Lowry while 11 players failed to break 80.
That score by @BrandtSnedeker is probably one of the best scores I've seen.
— Shane Lowry (@ShaneLowryGolf) January 31, 2016Texax Jimmy Walker leads Snedeker by one stroke on seven under par with eight holes to play and according to the forecast, he will also have to deal with winds of at least 25mph.
KJ Choi is tied with Snedeker on six under after 10 holes while Kevin Streelman and Freddie Jacobson are five under after 13 and 11 holes respectively.
Greystones’ Paul Dunne might be six over with two holes to complete but the Co Wicklow man is tied 21st and a par-birdie finish would give him a chance of another five-figure pay day and a host of world ranking points.
The 23-year old was five under par starting the day and conditions were so tough that he hit just two fairways on the front nine and made five bogeys and one birdie to turn in 40.
He started the back nine with back to back bogeys but then made five gutsy pars in a row to give himself a chance of a top 20 finish on his professional PGA Tour debut.
Asked during one of the rain delays about the confidence the gained from last year’s Open at St Andrews, Dunne said: “It gives me a lot of belief that I can do well against top competition.”
The former Walker Cup star knows he has a lot to learn and when asked where he needs to improve, he said: “It changes every week. This week, I haven’t driven the ball as well I wanted to so I need to drive it a bit straighter. In general I think everything is moving in the right direction. Everything can improve a little bit. I have weeks when some parts of my game are good and some parts are off. So hopefully I can go back out there and hit more fairways than I did in the last two days and make some pars.”
Dunne was at least happy to have his former UAB coach and fellow Greystones man on the bag.
“It’s great to have someone who knows your game so well. He’s watched me practice every day for four years so he has familiarity with my game. He knows how far I hit it, what kind of situations I do well in and how to get the best out of my game. So it’s great to have him on the bag.”
Looking ahead to the next few weeks, Dunne explained that he will play the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am and the head back to the European Tour with his next start the Perth International at Lake Karrinyup in Australia from February 25-28.
“Lots of travel,” he said.
