Shane Lowry continued his stellar play during Friday’s second round of the Arnold Palmer Invitational. He carded a 5-under 67 to move to 8-under for the tournament. Currently, that leads the tournament by two strokes ahead of Wyndham Clark, whose day was marred by controversy.
But I digress.
Lowry is the man of the hour through 36 holes at Bay Hill Club & Lodge. Entering the weekend, he will look to capture his fourth career PGA Tour victory. But he has found himself in this exact position before.
The Irishman actually led this same tournament through 36 holes last year. The last player to accomplish that feat was none other than Tiger Woods, according to golf statistician Justin Ray.
Woods actually won this event in four consecutive years, from 2000 through 2003. In doing so, he became the first player since Gene Sarazen in 1930 to win the same tournament four times in a row.
Lowry, meanwhile, is looking for his first win at Bay Hill. Despite holding the 36-hole lead last year, he finished solo third at 9-under. He, and the rest of the golf world, watched as Scottie Scheffler decimated the field that final Sunday.
Scheffler shot a 6-under 66 to run away with the tournament, winning by five shots ahead of the aforementioned Clark. That was toward the beginning of Scheffler’s historic 2024 season on the PGA Tour.
Following his second round, Lowry characterized his performance.
“Yeah, obviously pretty good,” Lowry said. “8-under after two rounds around this place is pretty good. Excited to have a late tee time here tomorrow and looking forward to the weekend.”
“It’s funny, when you have success, especially on a difficult place like this, it doesn’t mean you come here the next year and you have a God-given right to go and play well. You still need to play your game and execute. So I was kind of conscious of that… I guess when you start to see a few good shots around here and you start to see a few putts going in it makes it a bit easier.”
It is still possible Shane Lowry could enter the weekend in second position. Keegan Bradley is three shots off the lead as of this writing with five holes to play. Even with scores playing much lower on Friday, that seems like a bit of a stretch.
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