Through 36 holes at the Arnold Palmer Invitational, only one player has fired a pair of rounds in the 60s. That would be Irishman Shane Lowry, whose 5-under 67 soared him into the solo lead at the midway point.
“Eight-under after two rounds around this place is pretty good,” Lowry said after his round.
“Excited to have a late tee time here [on Saturday] and looking forward to the weekend.”
So far, Lowry has leaned on his strengths: he leads the field in strokes gained approaching the green and has gained almost four strokes with his putter, which is good for sixth among the 51 players who made the cut in that category.
The 2019 Open Champion has made only three bogies so far this week, all of which were due to misfires off the tee. He has missed the fairway 11 times overall, a surprising figure since he is historically accurate off the tee. But his iron play and short game look terrific, which has made up for that minor deficiency and then some.
First round leader Wyndham Clark will join him in the final pairing on Saturday. Clark trails Lowry by two after posting a 1-under 71 on Friday, a round marred by a rules controversy on the 3rd hole that resulted in Clark doing no wrongdoing.
Arnold Palmer Invitational Round 3 Tee Times (All Times ET):
- 9:20 a.m. — Max McGreevy
- 9:30 a.m. — Patrick Rodgers, Jacob Bridgeman
- 9:40 a.m. — Sam Stevens, Xander Schauffele
- 9:50 a.m. — Lucas Glover, Isaiah Salinda
- 10:00 a.m. — Daniel Berger, Ben Griffin
- 10:10 a.m. — Tommy Fleetwood, Andrew Novak
- 10:25 a.m. — Chris Kirk, Sam Burns
- 10:35 a.m. — Matt Fitzpatrick, Will Zalatoris
- 10:45 a.m. — Brian Harman, Adam Scott
- 10:55 a.m. — Nick Taylor, J.T. Poston
- 11:05 a.m. — J.J. Spaun, Aaron Rai
- 11:20 a.m. — Hideki Matsuyama, Denny McCarthy
- 11:30 a.m. — Eric Cole, Byeong Hun An
- 11:40 a.m. — Tom Hoge, Patrick Cantlay
- 11:50 a.m. — Michael Kim, Robert MacIntyre
- 12:00 p.m. — Adam Hadwin, Austin Eckroat
- 12:15 p.m. — Jackson Koivun (a), Christiaan Bezuidenhout
- 12:25 p.m. — Ludvig Åberg, Scottie Scheffler
- 12:35 p.m. — Justin Rose, Sungjae Im
- 12:45 p.m. — Sepp Straka, Tony Finau
- 12:55 p.m. — Si Woo Kim, Mackenzie Hughes
- 1:10 p.m. — Justin Thomas, Keegan Bradley
- 1:20 p.m. — Jason Day, Max Greyserman
- 1:30 p.m. — Russell Henley, Rory McIlroy
- 1:40 p.m. — Corey Conners, Collin Morikawa
- 1:50 p.m. — Shane Lowry, Wyndham Clark
Jack Milko is a golf staff writer for SB Nation’s Playing Through. Follow him on X @jack_milko.
