Shane Lowry goes down with a fight as European momentum falls flat

Shane Lowry reacts after conceding on the 16th hole at Whistling Straits. (AP Photo/Jeff Roberson)

Shane Lowry couldn’t summon the silence – or his own roars – on Sunday at the Ryder Cup.

Sent out behind Rory McIlroy in the first two singles matches, the Irishmen were being counted on by Irish captain Pádraig Harrington to hopefully inspire a blue wave of momentum into a historic comeback from six points down never seen in 42 previous Ryder Cups.

It looked good early with both McIlroy and Lowry 1-up through the first two holes to put some blue on the scoreboards for their teammates to see. But Patrick Cantlay – the recently crowned PGA Tour player of the year – went on a four-hole heater to turn 1-down into 3-up on Lowry through six holes.

But as Lowry has shown all week, he’s a battler who would not go down without a fight. When his 18-footer for birdie horseshoed out of the cup on the ninth green, it seemed to trigger Lowry’s confidence instead of frustrate him. He holed birdie putts of 6 and 15 feet on Nos. 10 and 12 to trim Cantlay’s lead to just 1 up.

But after Lowry stuck an approach to 9 feet on the 14th hole to put pressure on Cantlay, the American stuffed his own wedge to 1 foot and won the hole after Lowry’s putt missed. Another birdie by Cantlay at 15 put him back 3 up.

Lowry conceded the match 4-and-2 on the 16th hole to give the US its first point of an American landslide. The Offaly man was 1-2-0 in his Ryder Cup debut.