Lowry irate at missing US qualifier opportunity

Shane Lowry heads to today’s 36-hole US Open qualifier bitterly disappointed not to have automatically qualified for next month’s championship at Merion.

Lowry needed to finish top-three in the flagship BMW PGA Championship to be assured of contesting the season’s second Major for a first time in his career but was forced to settle for a share of 12th place on six under par.

Italy’s Matteo Manassero became the youngest-ever Wentworth winner in defeating England’s and 2010 champion, Simon Khan with a par at the fourth extra play-off hole.

Manassero (69), Khan (66) and Scotland’s Marc Warren (69) had ended regulation play tied at 10-under par but with Warren bowing out at the first extra hole.

Among the first to congratulate the 20-year old was World No. 2 Rory McIlroy who tweeted: “Massive congrats Matteo. It makes me feel like and old man # Phenom.

Manassero responded: “I’m happy he wrote that tweet. He is a bit older than me, I guess (smiling). But I am happy he wrote something nice like that.

Lowry had played superbly over the wet and miserable first two days with scores of 71 and 72 and went into the final day just three behind.

However he stalled to be one over par through eight holes before the first on just four birdies in his round at the ninth before also birding 11 and 12.

But it all came undone at the par five 17th when he sent his tee shot out-of-bounds to walk off with a double bogey before a little delight when he birdied the last.

“I’m very disappointed as I hung in there all day but that bad tee shot at 17 cost me a good few spots but then that’s golf,” he said.

“The thing is I had all of England to the right of 17 and I didn’t come here this week to finish 12th as I came here to contend.

Lowry will join Gareth Maybin and Peter Lawrie today at Walton Heath in a field of 96 and with the top-10 advancing to compete at Merion.

And whether or not he’s successful, Lowry is booked on an 8pm flight to the States and this week’s Memorial in Dublin, Ohio.

“It would be a great feeling going to the Memorial knowing I am also into the US Open but we’ll just to wait and see what happens.”

Meanwhile Sergio Garcia has been asked to wait until the US Open to apologise in person to Tiger Woods following the race row which erupted this week.

Garcia said: “We talked to his manager.

“We asked him if he wanted us to call Tiger, obviously if he gives us the number, or wait for Merion and do it there face-to-face, and they said they would rather do it there.

“So there’s nothing else we can do, so we’ll wait until we get there and we’ll talk.”

So far Woods’ only response came via Twitter, with the world number one writing: “The comment that was made wasn’t silly. It was wrong, hurtful and clearly inappropriate.

As for his performance this week, Garcia added: “I wasn’t really on my best game today, but it’s been a long week, a lot of emotions going on and today I kind of felt it a little bit.