The refined fist bump between Pádraig Harrington and Shane Lowry stated all of it because the rain hammered down on the little tent housing the interview space behind The Ok Membership’s 18th inexperienced and the house heroes wrapped up their opening rounds.
Successful one other soggy Amgen Irish Open is perhaps an excellent consequence for the likes of Lowry and Rory McIlroy, however enjoying effectively and avoiding any unwelcome muttering about kind heading into the Ryder Cup comes an in depth second.
Whereas Harrington nonetheless smiled and waved on the crowds as he battled an ice-cold putter and shot 74, and McIlroy blamed being placed on the clock as he turned a 69 right into a 71 with two late bogeys, Lowry shot a 69 that left him joint twelfth, simply three photographs behind leaders Nacho Elvira, Thorbjorn Olesen and Romain Langasque.
The Offaly man has not been at his sensible better of late, however he admitted that heading to Bethpage Black feeling good about his recreation is his largest concern
Harrington’s little acknowledgement of Lowry’s opening spherical spoke volumes.
“The one factor you need going into the Ryder Cup is you need to be enjoying comfortably,” Lowry stated of a spherical the place he was one over via eight holes and struggling for momentum.
“You do not need to really feel uncomfortable together with your recreation. You do not need to be going to New York looking for your recreation.
“So the subsequent two weeks are fairly essential that manner. However once you get right here, the Irish Open means a lot to me.”
Lowry three-putted his sixth gap of the day, however birdied the par-five 18th and fourth holes earlier than making some essential putts late on.
A ten-footer for birdie on the sixth catapulted him into the highest 10, and after making a six-footer to keep away from one other three-putt on the eighth, he rolled in a 14-footer on the ninth for a closing birdie.
“You might see early on, I used to be one over and there have been guys going out 4 or 5 below after 9 holes,” Lowry stated. “I am proud of how I dealt with that. Dealt with not placing an excessive amount of stress on myself to get a rating again.”
He was additionally proud of the brand new driver he is put within the bag this week.
“I’ve been struggling to seek out the driving force I like this 12 months, and yeah, that was good at present,” he stated, smiling. “However it is just in the future. Let’s not get forward of ourselves.”
Elvira shot a bogey-free 66 to take the lead earlier than being joined on the prime by Dane Olesen and French star Langasque.
They had been a shot away from Austria’s Bernd Wiesberger, England’s Dan Brown, France’s Adrien Saddier and Zander Lombard, who was within the final group of the day on the ninth, when a torrential downpour lashed the course in close to darkness, and so they accepted the choice to complete their rounds early at present.
The South African was enjoying alongside Laytown and Bettystown’s Alex Maguire, who obtained to four-under with 4 holes to play however double bogeyed the seventh after driving out of bounds.
The previous Walker Cup participant (24) has sprinkled mini tour begins between sporadic HotelPlanner Tour invites with little success thus far this 12 months, and a giant week might be career-changing.
He made six birdies and can resume in joint twenty fifth on two below after a troublesome afternoon of sunshine, rain squalls and most popular lies.
McIlroy was a shot additional again, 5 photographs off the tempo, after he bogeyed his sixteenth and seventeenth holes (the seventh and eighth) to shoot 71 as a referee lurked with a stopwatch.
He was tied for fiftieth with Tom McKibbin as Seamus Energy and Robert Moran shot stage par 72s to share 63rd.
Energy was motoring at three below via ten holes, however he bogeyed on the eleventh and thirteenth after which discovered the Liffey from the green on the treacherous seventeenth to run up a double-bogey six.
“A few higher iron photographs and it may simply have been three, 4 below,” the West Waterford man stated after a closing birdie. “As quickly as you suppose that (you are going effectively), you simply miss a fairway or do one thing (fallacious) and it is going to be powerful.”
Cork beginner John Doyle (18) opened with back-to-back birdies, however a 74 left him tied for 104th with Harrington and Kilkenny’s Mark Energy.
Conor Purcell shot 76 and Max Kennedy a 78 on a difficult day with each pencilling in a double-bogey and a triple bogey on their playing cards.
