{"id":538837,"date":"2026-04-19T04:28:11","date_gmt":"2026-04-19T04:28:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/538837\/"},"modified":"2026-04-19T04:28:11","modified_gmt":"2026-04-19T04:28:11","slug":"shane-lowry-middle-of-the-pack-at-rbc-heritage-as-matt-fitzpatrick-storms-into-lead-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/538837\/","title":{"rendered":"Shane Lowry middle of the pack at RBC Heritage as Matt Fitzpatrick storms into lead \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

Shane Lowry<\/a> improved on his opening round by a stroke to post a two-under 69 at the RBC Heritage at Harbour Town on Friday to leave himself 11 shots off clubhouse leader Matt Fitzpatrick on the PGA Tour<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The Irish golfer said he felt too \u201cdown and dejected\u201d to celebrate with winner Rory McIlroy after shooting an 80 in the final round of the Masters.<\/p>\n

\u201cI texted him on Sunday night, and I said, \u2018Honestly, I\u2019m so happy for you, but I don\u2019t have it in me tonight to go over and celebrate\u2019,\u201d he told the Golf Channel after his opening round.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis game has given me a lot of punches in the gut this year,\u201d Lowry said. \u201cIt\u2019s testing me a little bit, but, you know, I\u2019m not going to stop working hard.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m not going to give up, and I\u2019m going to give my best for as long as I may be playing this game.\u201d<\/p>\n

On Friday, he had a steady round with three birdies and one bogey, but it paled in comparison to the brilliance of European Ryder Cup team-mate Matt Fitzpatrick, who shot an eight-under-par 63 to reach 14-under-par for the tournament, which is a signature event with a $20 million purse. <\/p>\n

The Englishman had eight birdies and no bogeys as he outscored playing partner and world number one Scottie Scheffler, who is in contention for the weekend after a four-under-par 67 left him seven under.<\/p>\n

The in-form Fitzpatrick, who won the Valspar Championship, came to play the course on holidays when he was a kid and previously won the tournament in 2023.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Shane Lowry improved on his opening round by a stroke to post a two-under 69 at the RBC…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":538838,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[39],"tags":[5904,8693,3027,101,56,54,55],"class_list":{"0":"post-538837","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-golf","8":"tag-golf","9":"tag-pga-tour","10":"tag-shane-lowry","11":"tag-sports","12":"tag-uk","13":"tag-united-kingdom","14":"tag-unitedkingdom"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/538837","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=538837"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/538837\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/538838"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=538837"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=538837"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=538837"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}