Shane Lowry makes adventurous double bogey at Railway hole, still leads The British Open Championship

The Open Championship is supposed to be a stress test, a constant battle with the elements and tricky undulations, pot bunkers and possibly disaster lingering on every hole. Through 28 holes of this year’s Open, Shane Lowry managed to avoid almost any issue that would raise your blood pressure.

Then Lowry, 2-under for the day and 7-under for the tournament, arrived at the famous Railway 11th hole at Royal Troon. He felt enough stress for a full round on the 488-yard par-4, which took him nearly 45 minutes to play. He arrived at the tee with a two-shot lead. It was gone when he left the green.

Lowry’s drive missed right and settled in heavy fescue that borders the property line. Lowry took a mighty lash at the ball, but the club face completely closed as it went through the fescue, sending his shot tumbling into the gorse that lines the left side of the fairway.

Lowry hit a provisional, which remarkably found the green and set up a manageable bogey putt of about 10 feet. But as he walked toward the green, a spectator found Lowry’s first ball. Under the Rules of Golf, once the ball is found, Lowry must play it, forcing the 2019 Open champion to abandon the provisional and head for the gorse.

“I did the hard part. I hit my drive where you could find it, which is obviously a hard thing to do on that hole. I did a nice lie in the rough. I got a little bit distracted on the right just as I was over the shot, and I kind of lost a bit of train of thought,” Lowry said, referencing a cameraman that was in his vision just a few yards away.

“You're so afraid of going right there that I just snagged the club and went left. Then from there, I hit a great provisional. The referee asked me going down, did I want to find my first one, and I said no. So I assumed that was okay. Then we get down there, and somebody had found it. So apparently we have to find it then, or you have to go and identify it, which I thought, if you declared it lost before it was found, that you didn't, you didn't have to go and identify it.”

That’s when the fun began. It took more than 20 minutes to sort out Lowry’s next shot as he sought the opinion of multiple rules officials. Lowry opted not to hit his ball from the gorse bushes, instead taking an unplayable that moved him back along a narrow pedestrian pathway. Lowry did not hit the green with his approach from just under 60 yards, but he got up-and-down from just below the putting surface to escape with a double.

“I felt like through that whole process of that 20 minutes, it was whatever it was, of taking the drop, seeing where I could drop, and I felt like I was very calm and composed and really knew that I was doing the right thing, and I felt like Darren (his caddie) did a great job too just kind of – he kept telling me, we have loads of time. We don't need to rush this. We just need to do the right thing here,” Lowry said.

“To be honest, I was happy enough leaving there with a 6. It was not like – it wasn't a disaster. I was still leading the tournament.”

If there’s a hole to survive a disaster, it would be the 11th, which has played as the toughest on the course this week. Rory McIlroy and Tiger Woods doubled it on Thursday. Matt Fitzpatrick tripled it on Friday.

It claimed The Open leader, who dropped to 5-under, but he didn’t let it sink him. Lowry responded with a pivotal par at No. 12 and birdied the 16th and 18th to jump back to 7-under. Lowry was the clubhouse leader when he finished, which he expected to hold up given the difficult conditions.

“I think I'm ready to take what comes, take what's given to me out there. Almost ready for – anything that's thrown at me, I feel like I'm ready to take it on the chin and move on. I just have to deal with it and try and make the best of it and see where it leads me.