Emotional Shane Lowry steps up but Europe still in deep hole

Lowry threw his putter down and roared after his unlikely par on the last bailed out partner Tyrrell Hatton

Sun, 26 Sep, 2021 - 12:36

Scott Michaux, Whistling Straits

When Europe desperately needed a spark, Shane Lowry stepped up.

Lowry buried an 11-foot putt for a scrambling par on the 18th hole to deliver a desperately needed 1-up victory in the opening Saturday afternoon four-ball match – the first full point for Europe from someone other than Jon Rahm and Sergio Garcia.

Lowry threw his putter down and roared after his unlikely par on the last bailed out partner Tyrrell Hatton and finished off a match in which they hadn’t trailed from the third hole onward.

Unfortunately, the Offaly man's heroics wasn't enough for Europe as the afternoon session finished 2-2 to leave USA 11-5 in front heading into Sunday's singles, needing just 3½ more points to regain the cup.

The Offaly man was essentially a party of one for the first 10 holes in the four-ball match, taking on Americans Harris English and Tony Finau for the second straight day without much early help from partner Tyrrell Hatton on Saturday at Whistling Straits.

“Myself and Rory (McIlroy) didn't get the job done yesterday,” Lowry said. “We come up against a strong Tony and Harris, and when I seen the draw this afternoon, I was thinking it's my chance to get one back. I'm happy and with myself and Tyrrell, I had great fun out there today.”

With Europe trailing 9-3 and in need of a big afternoon to have any hopes of rallying on Sunday, Lowry went out in winds gusting up to 30 mph and birdied the first three holes to open a 1-up lead and added two more at Nos. 6 and 10 to sustain a narrow edge on the Americans.

On No. 11, Hatton finally contributed with a 16-foot birdie to put the team 2 up, prompting a huge roar and hand slap from a deeply engaged Lowry trying to pump up his teammate for the critical home stretch.

Having joined the party, Hatton stuck it to 10 feet from 152 yards to the precarious hole location tucked in the narrow back neck of the short par-3 12th perched above Lake Michigan. But his putt for a 3-up lead missed and Lowry went over to give him a pep talk to keep his head up.

The encouragement worked as Hatton poured in a 34-footer for birdie on No. 14 with the Americans already conceded a tap-in birdie, keeping them 1 up.

Hatton came through again with a par the halve on the difficult par-3 17th when Lowry’s tee shot rolled through the green and hung up halfway down a turf cliff, sending the match to the 18th with a tenuous 1-up edge.

But things got tense down the 18th when Hatton was the only player to hit the fairway off the tee, but they pulled his approach into a greenside bunker and barely got the next one out to the collar of rough around the green.

Lowry hit a poor tee shot into a deep fairway bunker and could only pitch out to the fairway. He then hit his approach from 150 yards to 11 feet. With English in the hole for par, Lowry had to make his putt to get the full point and give Europe at least a small mathematical chance to pull off a miracle on Sunday.

“It's a blur for me today to be honest,” Hatton said. “I didn't have any good stuff unfortunately this morning and I was struggling during a lot of that front nine. Obviously, Shane kept us in it. I played a little bit better on the back nine, and you know, a massive putt on the last for Shane to hole and a massive point for Team Europe.”

The tone was set for this critical match right off the bat, with Lowry having to hole a 2-foot putt for birdie that wasn’t conceded. After making, he held his putter over his line to show it was inside the leather. There would be no generous concessions the rest of the way.

It was a welcome bounce-back performance from Lowry after he and McIlroy struggled to make any birdies in difficult conditions late Friday. Lowry birdied the first hole Friday as well but failed to add another in a 4-and-3 defeat to Finau and English.

McIlroy, meanwhile, continued to scuffle along the Straits course without much success, having made only one eagle and zero birdies in two four-ball matches.

Only three of the 12 matches failed to reach the 16th hole and McIlroy was on the losing end of all three of them (5 and 3 in Friday foursomes; 4 and 3 in Friday four-balls; and 4 and 3 in Saturday four-balls).