'It’s mental torture' - Shane Lowry reveals struggles after US Open third round
With a clutch up-and-down par on 18, Shane Lowry walked off Pinehurst No. 2 with a level-par 70 in the third round of the U.S. Open and a broad smile across his face as if he’d stolen something from the field playing behind him.
“Honestly, absolute mental torture, really,” he said with a laugh. “Like that’s the best level par I’ve ever shot in my life. Honestly. Every single shot you have, every shot, even if you have a good shot, every single shot is brutally difficult. I’m looking forward to sit back and watch everybody in the afternoon. It should be interesting.”
Another scorching day of relentless sunshine crisping up the already firm course paired up with a steady breeze and uncompromising hole locations made Pinehurst No. 2 even more of a challenge that it’s been already, and Lowry’s birdies on 6, 7 and 16 offset bogeys at 1, 8 and 14 to move him up the leaderboard by standing still.
“Not much craic out there,” Lowry confessed.
“It's obviously firmer than it was last few days. It's way windier. The wind’s in a different direction. Some of the par-4s played really long. You really just have to manage your way well around there. I did a great job. Honestly. I hit some great shots, but like you're standing on the middle of fairway on par-4s with an 8-iron and you're like, ‘Right, where will I miss this?’ It's not where will I hit this? It's where's the miss? If I hit it over there, I can chip up there or two-putt from there. That’s the way to do it."
From the first hole, where Lowry three-putted from 40 feet for fear of putting it off the green and into the bunker, he deftly managed his way around the course and took whatever medicine or opportunity he was presented with while hitting 50 percent of both fairways and greens.
“You have to just be very clever about the way you go about your business,” he said. “I made a great par on the second and then I got my round going. I'm very happy because I think the scores are gonna come way back this afternoon and in my head I was thinking … I don’t think level par is going to be too far away this weekend.”
He picked up swaths of strokes on the field with birdies on the bruising sixth, seventh and 16th holes, and added some beautiful saves like the ones on 9 and 18. Had his 40-footer that lipped out on the par-3 17th fallen, it would have been all the better.
“I hit a great 5-iron into 6 to eight feet and hit two great shots into 16 and holed the putt,” he said of two of the hardest holes on the course where he made off with birdies. “It's almost like when you do have a putt you feel like you can hole, there’s more pressure on you to hole it. That was the easiest putt I had all day on 16 – just down the hill, left to right. There's nothing that can go wrong here.” Still sitting at 5-over through 54 holes after he was 5-over through the first 12 holes on Thursday, Lowry has a simple hope to be around there when Sunday is over.
“Another round a level par and it will be a great tournament I think,” he said. “Somehow if I manage 2-under par it will be even better. All in all, it's been it's been a good first three days.
"The tournament didn't start the best on the first nine but since then it’s been pretty good.”
After another long day of “mental torture” in the North Carolina heat, Lowry was looking forward to lying down on his couch and watching Rory McIlroy and the leaders try to negotiate Pinehurst No. 2 in the late afternoon.
“God, it’s gonna be no fun for the leaders out there this afternoon trying to win the U.S. Open in those conditions,” he said.
“I think the leaders and the guys that are under par should be looking and need to get it in their heads that level par with nine holes to go tomorrow will have a chance. So I always say that if you get on a bad run, you just need to steady the ship and keep going. You don't need to make birdies. Just keep going. You can deal with bogeys, you just can’t deal with doubles.
“Yeah, I think level par with nine holes to play tomorrow will have a chance to win the tournament.”
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