PGA Championship round-2: Pennsylvanian weather gods cause havoc for Shane Lowry and co

Shane Lowry reacts to a missed putt. Pic: AP Photo/Matt Slocum.

Philadelphia’s taglines are well-worn things at this stage. The Birthplace of America, the City of Brotherly Love, the City That Loves You Back. None have ever been thought of as under-used.

From a sporting perspective the more modern history of the place has given the world, well, the Tush Push. An absurdly effective NFL goalline manoeuvre, it involves everyone dispensing with any of the pretty stuff, getting down, dirty and dastardly.

Just blindly shove against the adversity and hope for success. Even when it does work as intended, at least one person in the middle of it all can end up with an awful pain in the hole.

Shane Lowry limped away from a green corner of northwest Philadelphia on Friday lunchtime and probably wouldn’t have appreciated the comparison. But the second round of the PGA Championship, and particularly its early portion, contained a whole lot of the above. And he may well have been the man left with the most tender tush.

As the Pennsylvanian weather gods swung in behind the demons in the agronomy team of Aronimink Golf Club, the venue for the 108th edition of this tournament became one hell of an arduous test.

The winds were billowing and blowing hard and the greens which had already provided plenty of headaches during Thursday’s opening round became something else entirely.

The 156 best golfers in the world, or at least the half of them misfortunate to have a morning tee time, were presented with 18 uniquely shaped ice rinks on which to operate a putter.

Pins were poked down in the most perplexing corners. At their fastest,the greens somehow got slow too. There was an epidemic of three-putts, a few mortifying four putts too. And yet it was, frankly, bloody good fun for those watching on.

Again, perhaps Friday lunchtime wouldn’t have been the opportune time to suggest that to Lowry. Or many of the other early starters who came back to the pretty Tudor clubhouse with thousand-yard stares. Major winners, constant contenders, didn’t matter who you were. Scottie Scheffler, Justin Rose, Matt Fitzpatrick, Keegan Bradley, Viktor Hovland. All suffered.

Lowry had come off the course on Thursday night rightly proud of his opening 68, a 2-under effort that required so much thinking and patience. Yet the following morning provided him with little reward for it all.

Starting on the back nine, he three-putt his opening hole and repeated the trick on the par-3 14th. Even on Thursday the shorties at Aronimink hadn’t treated Lowry as kindly as other courses. But he couldn’t have foreseen the pain he’d experience on the next short hole, the downhill 17th.

Lowry didn’t quite shank his tee shot but top-and-thinned a dying duck of a shot which skipped along the pond in front of the green before quickly sinking. Nothing looked right about the swing as Lowry flailed his hands right after contact. He and caddie Darren Reynolds looked bemused at the outcome. A double bogey followed.

One observer who said this PGA Championship had become something akin to a US Open course in British Open conditions wasn’t far off.

Things didn’t get much better for Lowry. Another three-putt on the fourth, his 13th, and two more bogeys leading into the last to put him on 5-over with the weekend looking a long shot. A lone birdie, at long last, to close brought him back within what later looked increasingly likely to be the cutline.

In Aronimink’s locker room, Lowry would have found plenty of fellow pros to share some three-putt therapy. The three-putt rate had shot up from 4.5% on Thursday to 8.2%. Scheffler put the test on the greens into very stark terms.

“This is the hardest set of pin locations that I've seen since I've been on tour, and that includes U.S. Opens, that includes Oakmont,” he said after scrambling to a 1-over 71.

“I did ask, I asked Fooch [Mark Fulcher], who caddies for Justin Rose. He's been around a long time — I asked Teddy too -—have you seen anything like this before? They said maybe Shinnecock is the only place they have seen that has pins that could compare to this.”

Significantly warmer weather is promised for the weekend so things could change again but thus far all the predictions of Aronimink being defenceless and a winning Sunday score in the high teens look to be way off. By Friday afternoon there were 47 players within five shots of the lead.

And out there in the middle of it all as the course went from torturous to more of a tempest was Rory McIlroy. Having ridden “the bogey train” at the tail end of his opening round he spent hours on the range Thursday evening.

It looked to be productive as he found two birdies in his first four holes and avoiding any blemish at all on his front nine, turning on 2-over overall.

Should we be surprised that on a chaotic day that had defied predictions and left so many flummoxed that Padraig Harrington was having fun with it all too? The Dubliner began with a birdie and then holed a 44-foot monster before almost chipping out of a bunker for an eagle.

Given how Aronimink has performed it would seem a shame for Harrington to be around for all that’s to come this weekend.