GLORY SHOT
Last hope fades for Ireland’s stars
UNDER blue skies in Wisconsin, the green army mobilised in a collective effort to remain involved in the 97th US PGA Championship.
Teeing off at the 10th, each Irish golfer was armed with a redemptive mission, although the odds on all five making the cut were slim, especially a ring- rusty Darren Clarke.
Even so, ‘ Glory’s Last Shot’, as the year’s final Major is known, stirred hearts bruised and battered by Thursday’s penal puffs.
No one waged a greater trench warfare than Shane Lowry, who sheared nine shots off his opening round with a 69 to catapult up the field.
It was a gritty response but as the afternoon gusts kept clear of Whistling Straits, Lowry’s three over par total looked a shade too high.
Pádraig Harrington also broke par with a 71 as he joined Lowry on 147, but Graeme McDowell’s wretched finish for the second day running cost him a 75 and shunted him out of the reckoning on 148.
With Clarke completely off his game, it left Rory McIlroy, playing his first event in over 50 days, as the lone Irish flag-bearer for the final 36 holes.
Lowry had cut a frustrated figure on Thursday where an error-strewn 78 left him nearer last than first.
As whispers circulated that Lowry’s WGC win in Firestone must have knocked the wind from his sails, the 28-year- old blew a birdie storm.
A run of three pars and three birdies in his first six holes, the 11th, 13th and 15th, was a clear signal of Lowry’s intent.
At three over par for the championship, he was enjoying an early moving day.
Alas, the Pete Dye design is dotted with minefields and Lowry was unable to steer clear of trouble.
The 520-yard par four 18th is a brute and Lowry was one of its many victims, unable to extricate a recovery from greenside rough as he ran up a bogey five.
Undeterred, Lowry bounced back with further birdies at the second and fourth, where he stitched his approach. At two over, improbably, he was teetering on the cut-line.
On the par five fifth, Lowry found water with his second shot and took a six. He bravely bounced back with a 10-footer for birdie on the next but when a six-footer slipped by for par on the eighth, he was running out of wriggle room.
To Lowry’s credit, he got up and down from a bunker on the ninth for a courageous par to stay at three over.
He had done all he could, now he needed a big favour from the winds to drag the projected cut mark up from one over to three.
Harrington was in a similarly aggressive mood as he strived to claw back from the abyss of a missed cut after his opening 76.
Early on, it looked encouraging for the 2008 champion. A hat-trick of birdies from the 14th, which included drained putts from 29 feet and 22 feet respectively, hoisted Harrington to one over par for the championship.
But then, just when the Dubliner needed sustained weaponry on the greens, his putter went cold. At the 17th he missed from 11ft for a par; at the 18th, a 13-footer slipped by.
There was time to regain the high ground but Harrington’s final nine holes were dotted with missed birdies opportunities — such as the nine-footer at the second, sevenfooter at the fifth, and 11-footer at the drivable sixth.
Had Harrington made even one of those putts, he might have made the weekend.
As Harrington pressed for the birdie he needed, up ahead McDowell found himself scrambling desperately for a foothold in the championship.
It had looked so rosy for G-Mac when he stood on the 16th tee on Thursday evening two-under par but a bogey-bogey-bogey finish had undone all his gritty work.
Implausibly, he ran into trouble again yesterday j ust when he seemed secure for 36 more holes.
With six holes to play, McDowell was one under for his round, level for the championship, having had 10 pars, a birdie and a bogey.
He seemed in control; only he wasn’t. He found a bunker off the tee on the fourth to drop a shot and then lost his way utterly with three demoralising bogeys to finish — just like Thursday. A 75 left him on 147, four over par. His last shot at glory was gone.