SHANE LOWRY AND Graeme McDowell sit four shots off the early lead as they warm up for The Masters at the Houston Open this week.
Lowry had three birdies and two bogeys for an opening round of one-under par 69 at Memorial Park, tied for 16th place in a leaderboard that is tightly bunched behind pace-setter Brandt Snedeker.
McDowell, who clinched his Augusta invite by virtue of his world ranking earlier this year, is also on one-under while Pádraig Harrington is tied for 44th after a one-over par 71.
Snedeker — who has finished in the top 40 only once since the PGA Tour’s Covid-19 shutdown — said the first spectators at a US tour event since March helped him seize the lead.
The 39-year-old American fired a five-under par 65 to lead by two shots.
“Very excited about how I played,” Snedeker said. “Drove it great. Around this golf course you have to be in the fairway, otherwise it’s going to be a long day. Did a great job of that. Made some putts. Birdied every par-5 out there.
“You need to take advantage of the scoring holes, which I did a great job of today.”
A total of 2,000 spectators are being allowed each day with face masks and social distancing precautions in place.
”That’s a big reason why I played well today — I love having fans out here,” Snedeker said. “I kind of feed off their energy. It’s great to hear some claps and people excited for good shots.”
Australians Jason Day and Cameron Davis, Mexico’s Carlos Ortiz and Americans Scottie Scheffler, Michael Thompson and Harold Varner shared second on 67.
Nine players remained on the course when darkness halted play. The best of them was Norway’s Kristoffer Ventura at 1-under through 16 holes.
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Unbelievable how they are unable to transfer any of their incredible success at Minor Level to Senior level, their record at Minor level is off the wall. This is a county that had never won a Minor Championship until 1983, now I think that is their 14th title, where do all these players disappear to?
@The Firestarter: Beertown
@The Firestarter: straight into all Ireland semi final for majority of those years. Not battle hardened?
@The Firestarter: The seniors have been in 6 all Ireland finals since the turn of the millennium so the players haven’t disappeared. Mayo footballers have zero all Irelands in that time but no one would argue that they haven’t been one of the best football teams in the country over the last 20 years.
Well done to our young lads . Making history again .
@Finnster:Just wondering how ye made history again with minors?
@Declan Lacey: Well 3 in a row was history previously for Galway Minor hurling when they became only one of two counties in Ireland the other being Cork back in the 70′s to achieve it.
Also on a side note as the new U20 All Ireland football championship is not that old I think Galway are also the only county to hold it and the minor Hurling Championship at the same time as they defeated Dublin in the final.
@Declan Lacey: read the article , the clues are there
@Declan Lacey:
Probably the most successful minor hurling team of each decade by number of All-Ireland Minor Hurling titles
2000s: 4 for Galway (2000-04-05-09)
2010s: 5 for Galway (2011-15-17-18-19)
Jesus the ref did his best for kilkenny to win it. Great win tonight
Congrats to a fine young Galway team. A lot of senior teams would want take note of that game today. All skills of game on show and no diving or pussyfooting about.
@Mervyn Queally: none of that Limerick Bish bash bosh stuff
@Mervyn Queally: have to agree, he gave a penalty to Kilkenny rightly so , shortly afterwards a Galway forward was taken down in the same fashion, nothing given. With a couple of minutes left a Galway forward was taken out, if the tackle was made in rugby it would be yellow or red card. The referee threw in the ball.
Great achievement! well done to the the tribesmen braves.
1 senior all Ireland since 88, what goes wrong in the west. Serious talent.
@Kevin Shortall: is that a congratulations you were trying to say there in a Kilkenny kind of way
@Kevin Shortall: 3 since 86 though and lost 6 all-ireland finals since then. Not bad for a traditionally football county.