Shane Lowry putts on the 12th green during the first round at the 2022 U.S. Open at The Country Club in Brookline, Mass. on Thursday, June 16, 2022. (Robert Beck/USGA)

Shane Lowry is bullish about his Masters chances but admits he needs to find his putting touch before he drives down Magnolia Lane in a month’s time.

The Clara man, who confessed he initially didn’t know what to do after parting company with caddie Brian “Bo” Martin in Dubai, was 10-under for his last 53 holes in The Players Championship.

Proud of how he fought back from an opening 77 and played some of his best golf from tee to green to make the cut and climb the leaderboard over the weekend, he’s just waiting now for his putter to warm up as he takes a week off following a gruelling run of eight events in nine weeks.

“The last three days are as good of golf as I can play, and I need to find something on the greens over the next couple of weeks,” said Lowry, who followed that 77 with rounds of 69, 68 and 70 to caress a likely top 40 finish on four-under.

Brian Martin and Shane Lowry at the Masters

“I hit the ball great. I mean, I shot two-under, and it's by far the worst score I could have shot today. That's disappointing because the way I played, had a five or six or seven-under in me today.

“That would have moved me nicely up the leaderboard, but I have to look at the positives, as well, and the way I drove the ball and hit the ball over the last three rounds is pretty nice.”

He was tied third in the Masters last year and while this season has been up and down with a poor run in the Middle East leading to an unplanned split with his caddie of four-and-a-half years, he will feel good heading there again, providing the putts start to drop.

“Yeah, I will,” agreed Lowry, who will make a quick trip to Augusta this week before returning to action in the WGC-Dell Technologies Match Play in Austin. “I'm disappointed how I putted. I've been working so hard on it, and it's just not coming in. I need to just keep my chin up and keep going, keep working, keep grinding away, and hopefully it'll come in about a month's time.”

He started working with Donegal born putting coach Stephen Sweeney two years ago and revealed he changed to a shorter putter for the Arnold Palmer Invitational with little return so far.

“It's been going pretty good,” he said after week in which he missed 12 putts inside 10 feet. “But it's just been a bit of a barren spell the last few weeks. I feel like if I had have holed anything this week, it would have been a decent week.

“It's one of those, there's no drastic changes needed, just a bit of confidence. There's a lot of it between the ears, as well, and I just need to get that right. Maybe commit to it a little more. I don't know.”

While he knows anything could happen in the Match Play in Austin, he’s just trying to get some positive feelings going on the greens.

“It's more just putting the hours and the time in as opposed to trying to work on anything specific,” he said. “For me, where we are in Florida, The Bear's Club, they'll have the greens rolling 14 plus they'll have the place in pristine condition. Hopefully then when it comes to it on the Thursday of the tournament, I'll be ready to go.”

As for his decision to split with long-time caddie Martin and take on Darren Reynolds, he admitted it was not a meditated decision.

“We started in the Middle East, and I had a bad couple of weeks, and we had a chat and things weren't going as well as I probably thought. It got to me a little bit, and I just needed some fresh -- I knew, when it happened, I had no one in mind, no one lined up, so I didn't know what to do,” he said.

“I've been on Tour 14 years. I'm not exactly a caddie firer or anything. This is my third caddie. I've known Darren for years. He had just started with Alex Levy on the European Tour. That's almost why I didn't want to ask him, because I knew he just got a new job and I didn't want to take him away and then it not work out for us.

“But, frankly, he was one of the few options I had, and we just had a chat. He caddied for me during COVID for a few weeks when Bo couldn't, and yeah, it's been going pretty good.”

On the DP World Tour, Spain’s Jorge Campillo followed in the footsteps of 1978 champion Severiano Ballesteros when he claimed his third DP World Tour title with a two-stroke win in the Magical Kenya Open in Nairobi.

Leading by a stroke heading into the final round, the Spaniard (36) carded a five-under-par 66 to win for the first time since the 2020 Commercial Bank Qatar Masters.

He finished on 18-under par at Muthaiga Golf Club, two shots ahead of Japan's Masahiro Kawamura as Holywood’s Tom McKibbin (20) shot 69—his fourth successive round in the sixties— to tie for 25th on nine-under and clinch his fifth top-25 finish from just ten starts this season

."It's hard to put my name with those names,” said Caceres-born Campillo, who joins Masters champions Ballesteros, Ian Woosnam and Trevor Immelman on the list of Kenya Open winners.

“With where I'm from, the little town I'm from. I'm very proud. It's always nice to win a golf tournament, but if you have a name on the trophy with Seve it's more special for a Spaniard."

McKibbin is now 72nd in the Race to Dubai but West Waterford’s Gary Hurley is 140th after eight events while Kinsale’s John Murphy, who also missed the cut on Friday, has yet to make a cut after eight starts this season.