Lowry off his greens as Harrington suffers water torture
Matthias Schwab. Picture: Getty Images
Shane Lowry suffered a disappointing day on the greens and admitted he now needs to shoot three rounds in the mid-sixties to have any chance of winning the Turkish Airlines Open.
The Open champion cut a disconsolate figure as he played some excellent golf from tee to green but lost confidence with the putter and had 32 putts in a level-par 72 that left him seven strokes behind England's Tom Lewis and Austria's Matthias Schwab at The Montgomerie Maxx Royal.
It was doubly galling for Lowry to watch his Race to Dubai rival Bernd Wiesberger birdie the last for a 71 as the other member of his threeball, hat-trick chasing defending champion Justin Rose, birdied the last three holes to turn an average round into a 67.
"That's the thing," Lowry said. "I said it to [caddie] Bo on 17, he had a six-footer and I said, 'he's going to hole this and birdie the last to shoot five-under'. We were nip and tuck all day, and he has beaten me by five. It's a funny game.
"The last thing I want is to be fighting in the middle of the pack. Ideally, I'd like to go out there and shoot a decent one tomorrow to give myself a chance of a good week, because the scoring is going to be good, It's probably going to take 20 under to win this week."
Lowry's 72 left him tied for 52nd, just three shots better than Padraig Harrington, who ran up a quintuple bogey 10 after three visits to water at the fourth.
"I played lovely, I can’t play any better than I did today," said Lowry, who knows he cannot afford to miss any more three footers. "I literally couldn't get the ball in the hole from three feet.
"I barely missed a three-footer all year, and I missed three of them in quick succession today. It is what it is. What can I do? I just have to go out tomorrow and do better."
Lowry two-putted the first for birdie but missed a three-footer for a two at the par-three second and was never the same on the greens after that.
He hit two lovely shots to the par-five fourth but three-putted from the back fringe for par, badly missing another three-footer.
A bogey six at the 13th saw him slip back to level par and while he had chances for birdies inside 15 feet the 16th and 17th, he left both short before trying too hard to pitch close at the 18th, leading to a disappointing two-putt par.
"It kind of shocked me," he said of his missed putt at the second. "I hit it into three feet. It was like 'wow', it didn't even hit the hole. I haven't hit a putt like that since I can't remember when.
"Then i did the same thing on 4, two great shots to 20 feet and left it three feet short. From there on I couldn't get the ball to the hole all day, I struggled and it even affected my pitch shot on the last.
"You're trying so hard to hit the perfect shot that if I was putting alright you're hitting it up there to eight feet and you're holing it.
"It's probably a mindset thing but I struggled from the misses early on. I probably had between 34 and 37 putts today. A good few anyway.”
Defending champion Justin Rose makes the toughest shots look easy. @DubaiDutyFree #FullofSurprises pic.twitter.com/NNBtIZbCzE
— The European Tour (@EuropeanTour) November 8, 2019
Rose is trying to win the event for the third year in a row and he admitted he had to change his mindset on the greens as the imperfections became more evident late in the day.
"The greens were bumpy and when the sun got low, it wasn't really confidence-inspiring," said Rose, who rammed in a 15 footer for a two at the 16th, then hit a sensational approach through the trees to six feet at the 17th before getting up and down from a deep greenside bunker for a birdie at the 18th, holing an eight footer.
"So I sort of changed my mindset to just not expecting the ball to go in and just trying to free up my stroke because of that, and I did, I ran the ball better at the hole the last few holes."
Scoring was red-hot on a day of soft greens and windless conditions with 51 players in the 75-man field breaking par.
Lewis made eight birdies in a 65 as Schwab dropped just one shot and mixed an eagle with six birdies alongside Ryder Cup skipper Harrington to grab a share of the lead.
They lead by one shot from David Lipsky, Thomas Pieters and Alex Noren with Harrington 71st in the 75-man field after fighting back from his 10 at the fourth with two closing birdies to card a 75.
The Dubliner drove into the water at the fourth and then came up short twice in the greenside lake with two three-woods before playing out to the right and eventually two-putting for his 10.
“These things happen,” said Harrington, who was six over after six holes before rallying with two closing birdies.
“I missed a short putt on the third hole and then I hit my drive solid on the fourth, thinking I had carried the water but it didn’t. I had pulled my drive in carrying the water in the Pro-Am and just hoping to get away with it today. I then took a drop and hit a lovely third shot and thought it was going to be on the green, and was walking away but it dropped into the water.
“My third shot had come out soft but then I took a second penalty, and thought I had hit that one well and again, it went into the water again.
“So, it came as a bit of a shock after hitting two nice 3-wood’s that only carried 245-yards instead of having 280-yards to the pin and thinking I had enough club. I thought I would get a 5-wood over the water, actually.
“As I said, these things happen. I have no idea as to why the shots came out softer out of the lie I had but then it was not a huge concern of mine at the time.
“I was thinking to myself that if I hit a good third shot onto the green and I make par then ….. it just hurt my momentum a bit. I then missed a short putt on the next hole, so there you go.”
He dismissed his 75 as a decent effort considering his troubles at the fourth.
“No, not really,” he said. “It’s a very easy golf course. There is five par-5s and they are all reachable. If you drive the ball well you are going to have a bumper day.”
He chose to play with potential Ryder Cup rookies Schwab (65) and Frenchman Victor Perez (68) as part of his plan to get to know all the young players who might contend for a place in his team and admitted he was impressed.
Defending champion Justin Rose makes the toughest shots look easy. @DubaiDutyFree #FullofSurprises pic.twitter.com/NNBtIZbCzE
— The European Tour (@EuropeanTour) November 8, 2019
“Matthias played very well, I assume he would have been under some bit of pressure too. It was a good sign and he is certainly well able to play the game that’s for sure,” he said. “There are plenty of young guys out there fighting and it’s hard for them to set themselves apart, but Victor and Matthias are certainly doing that. It’s difficult for these young guys to make a claim, it’s tough to distinguish yourself in the modern game.
“I am bound to have two or three rookies at least in the team next year so we will see how it progresses over the next year.”
Asked asked if he liked putting pressure on the younger players, he grinned and said: “That’s not my plan at all but I find it interesting, I quite enjoy the that position to see how they react. I am not there to test them though, I am just there to go out and play with them and get to know them."
Turkish Airlines Open, The Montgomerie Maxx Royal, Belek, Antalya, Turkey (Par 72)
65 T Lewis (Eng), M Schwab (Aut),
66 A Noren (Swe), D Lipsky (USA), T Pieters (Bel),
67 J Rose (Eng), T Detry (Bel), B Hebert (Fra), D Willett (Eng), S Jamieson (Sco), J Luiten (Ned),
68 M Southgate (Eng), T Hatton (Eng), J Campillo (Esp), A Pavan (Ita), E Molinari (Ita), R Ramsay (Sco), V Perez (Fra), J Hansen (Den), J Scrivener (Aus), A Rai (Eng),
69 R Fisher (Eng), A Otaegui (Esp), J Harding (RSA), F Zanotti (Par), K Kitayama (USA), S Hend (Aus),
70 H Tanihara (Jpn), R Sterne (RSA), M Kinhult (Swe), N Bertasio (Ita), R Langasque (Fra), P Waring (Eng), E Van Rooyen (RSA), M Kaymer (Ger), E Pepperell (Eng),
71 S Crocker (USA), L Bjerregaard (Den), N Colsaerts (Bel), G Coetzee (RSA), N Elvira (Esp), L Westwood (Eng), R Macintyre (Sco), P Reed (USA), F Molinari (Ita), B Wiesberger (Aut), K Samooja (Fin), C Bezuidenhout (RSA), O Wilson (Eng), S Sharma (Ind), J Smith (Eng),
72 W Ormsby (Aus), S Soderberg (Swe), D Drysdale (Sco), G Migliozzi (Ita), P Larrazábal (Esp), Shane Lowry (Irl), K Aphibarnrat (Tha), T Yamac (am) (Tur),
73 Z Lombard (RSA), C Pan (Tpe), H Li (Chn), G Green (Mas), C Paisley (Eng), J Lagergren (Swe), R Fox (Nzl), R Paratore (Ita),
74 M Wallace (Eng), S Brown (Eng), S Horsfield (Eng),
75 Pádraig Harrington (Irl), M Kawamura (Jpn), J Walters (RSA), A Arnaus (Esp),
76 A Quiros (Esp)
