{"id":507385,"date":"2026-02-27T11:00:08","date_gmt":"2026-02-27T11:00:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/507385\/"},"modified":"2026-02-27T11:00:08","modified_gmt":"2026-02-27T11:00:08","slug":"lowry-eight-adrift-after-mixed-opening-cognizant-round","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/507385\/","title":{"rendered":"Lowry eight adrift after mixed opening Cognizant round"},"content":{"rendered":"

Shane Lowry carded a disappointing one-under-par 70 in the opening round of the Cognizant Classic in Florida to sit eight shots off leader Austin Smotherman.<\/p>\n

The Offaly man, starting on the back nine, birdied his first but dropped three shots and picked up just one more before the turn.<\/p>\n

The former Open winner carded further birdies on the first and third holes and parred the remaining six to sign for a 70 at The Palm Beaches.<\/p>\n

Waterford’s S\u00e9amus Power, who also started on the back nine, was one shot further back after his even-par round where he managed two birdies and two bogeys, including a dropped shot at the last.<\/p>\n

FULL LEADERBOARD<\/a><\/p>\n

Smotherman fired a bogey-free 9-under 62, including six straight birdies in the middle of his round to take the lead.<\/p>\n

Nico Echavarria of Colombia sits one back after a 63, while a six-man group featuring Taylor Moore, Jackson Suber, Kevin Roy, Daniel \u200cBerger, Norway’s Kristoffer \u2060Reitan and Sweden’s Pontus Nyholm rounded out the early chase pack with 4-under 67s.<\/p>\n

Recent PGA Tour returnee Brooks Koepka never found much rhythm in his Florida return. He was 4-over \u200cfor his last six holes, including a double bogey at the par-3 \u206017th, and signed for a 3-over \u200c74 that left him buried in a tie \u2060for \u200c98th heading into Friday.<\/p>\n

David Ford’s card was the opposite of steady. After starting his round on the back nine, Ford \u2060took a disastrous quadruple bogey at the 17th that \u2060saw him take multiple shots while standing in water. He then erased the damage in a hurry by holing out for eagle on both the 2nd and 3rd holes to finish \u200cat 1-over 72 in a tie for 68th.<\/p>\n

No players in this week’s field are ranked top-25 in the world.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Shane Lowry carded a disappointing one-under-par 70 in the opening round of the Cognizant Classic in Florida to…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":507386,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[566],"tags":[64,63,755,85],"class_list":["post-507385","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-golf","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-golf","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/507385","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=507385"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/507385\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/507386"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=507385"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=507385"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=507385"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}