Lowry left home alone for weekend

Approach the first tee at Carton House and you are faced with a giant poster on the back of the stand adorned with images of six famous Irish golfers.

Only one of those faces will be seen on the course this weekend.

After all the talk of a multi-layered home challenge, Rory McIlroy, Pádraig Harrington, Graeme McDowell, Darren Clarke and Paul McGinley will have the weekend off. Only Shane Lowry remains.

It was close to noon when McIlroy and Lowry sauntered past their likenesses and up to the first tee yesterday and, though six shots separated them, the success of the tournament rested more or less evenly on their shoulders.

Yes, even then.

Harrington and McDowell had already returned to the clubhouse with a pair of 74s that left them below the waterline that was the eventual cut, Clarke never looked like making it and McGinley came up two shots short later in the afternoon.

A tournament so heavy on Irish star power but light on cosmopolitan glamour to back it up could ill-afford to lose McIlroy as well, however fuzzy his game might be, and the crowds that trailed him said as much.

His game may be out of tune but McIlroy is at a level right now where people fall over themselves to capture his blurred image on a smart phone. Little jaws drop when his caddie JP Fitzgerald presses a Nike ball into a kid’s hand.

McIlroy’s loss is incalculable because his presence tomorrow would have drawn the crowds in greater numbers and at an earlier juncture. Now, it looks like he will have time to watch the British and Irish Lions after all.

“It’s not great for the tournament,” he admitted, “but we have Shane up there at least. I’ve played alongside Shane the last couple of days and he’s played really well so he’s got a great chance going into the weekend.

“It’s disappointing for myself, Graeme, Darren, Pádraig, Paul McGinley as well who had a good score [Thursday]. It’s not great, but it’s just the way it is and it’s golf. You have good weeks and you have bad weeks.”

McIlroy’s absence — and that of the others — will ultimately be felt when the combined attendance figures are totted up this next two days but, in Lowry, this tournament can at least hold out the possibility of another Baltray.

“It’s going to be disappointing for the Irish crowds but hopefully I can give them something to shout about over the weekend,” he said.

It’s no small thing to carry a tournament but if anyone has the temperament then it is Lowry, whose uncomplicated approach is complemented this week by a straightforward stroll back to his home in the Carton House grounds each night.

Yet even he betrayed signs of exasperation on a front nine which began with a bogey that would have been doubled only for a 15-footer. There was precious little of the fireworks which energised a sopping gallery on the Friday in 2009 when he shot 62.

McIlroy was the one admonished in print and on the airwaves for venting his frustration so visibly at this month’s US Open, but it was Lowry who felt the need to take his mood out on an unsuspecting golf bag now and again.

Three dropped shots and just one bought back was his lot in the first seven holes. The first break he got all day was at the portable WC between the seventh green and eight tee when the snaking line of punters ordered him to skip ahead.

Further relief came on the short par-four ninth where he carded birdie and four more followed on the back nine with only a solitary blip in the form of a bogey five at 14 to leave him just two off the lead overnight.

For many people today, he will be the only show in town.

“There’s a lot of expectation but I suppose I’m more confident on my home course here, comfortable with the surroundings and, yeah, it’s an advantage for me this week so I’m going to try and use that advantage.”