The virtue of patience, with rounds taking over five-and-a-half hours in difficult scoring conditions, proved to a key attribute in Shane Lowry’s navigation of first round of the 108th US PGA Championship at Aronimink Golf Club, where his head space and his shot execution combined for a two-under-par 68 to jump straight into contention in the season’s second Major.
A closing birdie, hitting a 7-iron to 14 feet, the approach barely clearing the greenside rough and then gently rolling down the slope, put the icing on the cake of a round where, a month after his Masters disappointment, Lowry regained his Majors mojo in the company of Collin Morikawa and Viktor Hovland to lie just a stroke adrift of a septet of first-round leaders, among them world number one Scottie Scheffler.
Remarkably, given his CV which includes four career Majors wins, it represented the first time in 27 career Major appearances that Scheffler led or shared the lead after the first round.
“Is it really a lead when you co-lead with six others?” quipped Scheffler of learning of that statistic, the bottom line being who leads when the last ball is holed come Sunday. True.
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Still, it seemed like a first day’s play where many – those with Majors and those seeking a first – played their way into the mix, including Lowry, who was in a group one shot adrift of Scheffler, Aldrich Potgieter, Stephan Jaegar, Min Woo Lee, Ryo Hisatsune, Martin Kaymer and Alex Smalley.
Staying in the moment proved important to Lowry, on a course where tricky pin placements and a swirling wind combined with the slow pace of play to offer a challenging opening day which saw no fewer than 33 players within three shots of the lead on a clogged leaderboard.
“I just managed my way around the course. It got tricky. Everyone was kind of intrigued to see what the course was going to be like and what it was going to play like and it played quite difficult. I felt like when you get out of position, you needed to try and get back in position and to take your chances when you got them. I felt like I did a good job of that,” said Lowry, who had an eagle, three birdies and three bogeys in his round.
That eagle came with a chip-in on for three on the par 5 ninth but, in many ways, it was a par-saving putt on the seventh, from 25 feet, which provided much of the momentum in Lowry’s journey around the Donald Ross classic.
“I was a little bit nervy at the start, to be honest,” said Lowry, who three-putted his opening hole for a bogey. “I struggled. I felt uncomfortable out there for a while. If anything, that kind of focuses me more, [take it] one shot at a time and you’re really just kind of focusing on the next shot at hand,” said Lowry who did a fine job of sticking to the task at hand.
With that final round of the Masters put to bed in rebounding with a strong opening round here at the PGA, Lowry added: “I felt like I did a really good job of just staying patient, trying to make birdies when I hit good shots. And if I hit bad shots, just not getting too flustered and just managing my way around the course nicely ... I didn’t feel comfortable out there at all, but maybe that helped me.”
Lowry was comfortably the best of the Irish quartet, with Masters champion Rory McIlroy along with Pádraig Harrington and Tom McKibbin each signing for 74s – in tied-105th – that left them in fights for cut survival.
McIlroy had issues with his driving, usually the strongest part of his game, and spent a considerable amount of time on the range after completing his round.
