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.
