Lowry: I’m only here for the beer
SHANE LOWRY is on course to toast another big win at the BMW PGA after the Open champion revealed he is only in Wentworth because the pubs are shut back home.
The world No. 31 missed the cut at the Dubai Duty Free Irish Open in his first event back in Europe and was ready to take another week off.
Yet his plans changed when Covid- 19 rules were tightened in the Republic of Ireland and pubs and restaurants were closed. And after arriving on Tuesday night, he has shot rounds of 67 and 65 to share the halfway lead with Matt Fitzpatrick.
“I probably needed a bit of a break to be honest,” said Lowry.
“I decided to come late Sunday night when I was watching the news back home and it said we were going to go under a stricter lockdown and you couldn’t really do anything.
“So I am only here because the pubs are shut! I texted [ caddie] Bo [ Martin]: ‘ Do you fancy going this week?’ And I think he was down at the pub having a pint so wasn’t too happy. But I am glad we came. I just love coming back here.”
Lowry was joined on 12 under par by Fitzpatrick after the Ryder Cup star also shot a 65 and then claimed Bryson Dechambeau is making a “mockery” of golf.
Playing his first event as a Major champion, the bulkedup US Open winner shot an opening 62 at the Shriners Hospitals for Children Open and drove the green at the 381- yard seventh hole.
World No. 20 Fitzpatrick, who weighs just 11st, said: “It just makes a bit of a mockery of it.
“When he’s on, there’s no point, is there? It doesn’t matter if I play my best, he’s going to be 50 yards in front of me off the tee and the only thing I can compete with him is putting and that’s just ridiculous.”