Movitated Lowry blooms in freezing Phoenix - “It's pretty annoying to be sitting at home watching those big events on TV"

Shane Lowry admits watching the signature events on TV is "pretty annoying", but it's also motivating him to play better and it showed as he overcame horrible conditions to fire a 67 that left him just two shots of the lead in the WM Phoenix Open.

Bitterly cold temperatures were followed by heavy rain at TPC Scottsdale, leading to a three-and-a-half-hour suspension in play.

Lowry had raced into the lead on five-under after a sensational opening nine of 31, but while he'd dropped back to four-under with four holes to play when the hooter sounded, he came back out and parred his last four holes to remain right in the hunt.

"Yeah, it was pretty good,” said the Offaly star, who has not qualified for any of the big signature events so far this year.

"I was going quite well, obviously, before the delay. It got really bad towards the end, it was quite tough.

"We came back out, the wind was not blowing as strong, but the ball was going nowhere, and it was cold and kind of tough. I was happy I made a couple of really nice saves coming in, and I'm pretty happy with my day's work."

His 67 left him tied for third with SH Kim, two shots behind Sahith Theegala, whose six-under 65 left him a shot ahead of Andrew Novak, who had played just nine holes when play was suspended for the day.

It was a magnificent effort from Lowry, who didn't finish in the top 50 in the FedEx Cup last year and has to qualify or earn invitations for the signature events, such as next week's Genesis Invitational at Riviera.

"I went out today and showed that, you know, I can still play at the odd time," suggested the 2019 Open champion, who was 18 under for his first two events of the year but started by missing the 54-hole cut by one in the American Express and then ending up tied for 25th at Pebble Beach.

"I know I just need to keep going, like I'm building, trying to build for the big weeks. I have a bit of a weird schedule this year.

"I'm not in some of the big tournaments, which is pretty annoying to be sitting at home watching those on TV, so it kind of gives me that little bit of motivation to kind of play as good as I can this week to get into next week.

While he'd love the odd sponsor's exemption — "I've written everyone with no luck so far" — being sharp for the Masters is his big goal and playing his current schedule might not be a bad thing.

"Obviously, those events on the PGA TOUR are huge, but I, obviously, look at the Masters in April as a huge goal, and everything over the next few months is kind of gearing towards that," he said.

"If anything, I feel like I played too much at the start of last year because I had to play all the designated events.

"Whereas, this year, I'm going to have a little bit more time off, a little bit more rest and a little bit more time to practice, which is nice as well."

The event is normally a party week for hundreds of thousands of young fans, but Lowry felt the weather was so bad that he wondered aloud why some spectators weren't in a nearby bar.

"There's a group of lads on the sixth hole when it was raining, and I said, 'What are you guys doing out here? Surely you can find the closest bar and do something else,'" Lowry explained.

"But, I mean, the rain was coming in sideways, they were standing there to watch us hit a six-iron 160 yards, I was like, 'You should just go home, you know?'

"It's like one of those. It was, honestly it was horrible, it was as tough conditions I can remember for a while."

He added: "If anything, it's more disappointing to me because the atmosphere is not as good as it normally is, with everyone being so cold and wrapped up.

"I'm sure there's less drink been taken out there as well, because it's not exactly nice weather to have a cold beer in your hands."

After falling out of the world's top 50 for the first time in five years earlier this week, Lowry started like a man possessed and turned in a blistering five-under 31 dressed for a day in Rosses Point rather than Phoenix, Arizona.

He almost holed his opening approach shot from 138 yards at the 10th and tapped in from 15 inches for his birdie, then made a 28-footer for another at the 478-yard 11th.

He missed a seven-footer for a two at the 202-yard 12th but two-putted the par-five 13th to go three-under, then birdied three of his last four holes on the back nine.

After making an eight-footer at the 15th, he bogeyed the par-three 16th but rapped in a 38-footer for birdie at the 17th before hitting a wedge to just five feet at the 18th to top the leaderboard.

He handed back a shot at the second, where he drove into the desert and couldn't get up and down from 43 yards and then watched birdie chances slip by at the third and fourth before officials suspended play due to waterlogged greens as he played the sixth.

He spent two hours of the weather delay chatting with friends in his car and was pleased to finish with two scrambling pars.

Experience, he admitted, is key.

"It's one of those where, the older you get, the more you realise don't let it affect you, just go in, chill out," he said of the weather and the delay.

"I'm lucky; I have a couple of friends here with me this week. We went out to my car in the parking lot, and we just hung there for about two hours, warmed up because it was very cold. Yeah, you just get used to it as the years go on."

West Waterford's Seamus Power managed to play just four holes late in the day and followed three opening pars from the 10th with a birdie four at the 13th to share 18th on one-under when play was called for the day.