Shane Lowry, a Jason Kelce lookalike, blocks out the weather at the Truist Championship
Lowry, from Ireland, shot a second-round low 65 to move into second place. He also had praise for the Eagles legend.
Shane Lowry could pass for a Kelce brother, with his long beard, affable personality and, um, larger physique.
The similarities may have been behind the idea for pairing Lowry with Jason Kelce for the Truist Championship pro-am on Wednesday. But the better match this week at the Philadelphia Cricket Club may be the Irishman and the Wissahickon Course.
Lowry shot a low round 5-under 65 on the second day of the Truist to vault into second place. Among the first to tee off, he avoided some of the nastier weather that affected later golfers, and he will play in the final group on Saturday with Keith Mitchell, who leads by one shot at 12-under.
“It only was towards the end. Most of the round was actually fine,” Lowry said of the “smelly” elements, as he labeled them, on Friday. “It was somewhat playable. Obviously the ball wasn’t going very far, but there wasn’t that much rain, and there wasn’t much wind as well, which was nice.
“I felt like the course, once you hit it in the fairways, was very scorable.”
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After posting an opening-round 64, Lowry came back early the next day with tee times moved up and shot 4-under on the front. On the 220-yard No. 8, he hit a 5-iron to four feet and tapped in for birdie.
“I actually pushed it a little bit right,” Lowry said, “and it got a little nudge off the slope there.”
Lowry bogeyed the 10th, but he bounced back and birdied the next hole and the par-5 No. 15. He got up and down on the long and treacherous last two holes, with No. 17 playing the most difficult and yielding only one birdie.
“I’m very happy with my day,” Lowry said. “To par the last two holes — like 18 was brutal. I couldn’t reach it in two.”
He wasn’t the only one. But his drive traveled only 259 yards, leaving him 261 yards to the hole. Lowry’s second landed 46 yards short in the left rough. But he had plenty of green to work with and chipped to within five feet.
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His playing partners, meanwhile, struggled down the stretch. Justin Rose was already unraveling, but he went bogey, double, double on the last three holes and finished with a 77.
Keegan Bradley was a steady 7-under overall through 16. But he sliced his drive way right on No. 17 and went on the far side of the berm — where an old rail line once existed — and made double. He then gave back another on No. 18.
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It was showering by then and wouldn’t let up for the next few hours. Lowry might have been born in the country in which it’s sardonically said, “There’s no such thing as bad weather, only the wrong clothes,” but he said playing in poor climate growing up doesn’t give him much of an advantage.
“Everyone says that to me every day when it rains,” Lowry said. “I live in South Florida, and I plan to be there now. I think I’m able to handle them probably better than a few people, but I don’t particularly like or enjoy going out and playing in these conditions.”
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When Lowry won the Open Championship in 2019 at Royal Portrush in Northern Ireland, benign conditions allowed him to win by six strokes. It has remained the high-water mark of the 38-year old’s career.
He won on the European tour in 2022, and last year on the PGA Tour in the Zurich Classic when he partnered with longtime friend Rory McIlroy in the two-man tournament. But he’s lacked a signature victory since the Open.
“I found it hard in 2019 when I won The Open to kind of come back out,” Lowry said. “You almost want it too much sometimes to almost forget about that and move on. I think there’s a part of you that should enjoy what you’ve just done and … not try too hard to back up what you’ve done.”
He was asked about the Open in reference to McIlroy, who exorcised some demons with last month’s Masters win that allowed him to complete the career grand slam. But his answer put into perspective his path since winning his first and only major.
Lowry has been among the more consistent players on the PGA Tour. He’s been in contention in majors since 2019, with four top-six finishes. But he hasn’t quite moved into the upper echelon. He clearly has the game as he’s showed the last two rounds.
A win here would enhance his resume and give him momentum ahead of the second and third majors — next week’s PGA Championship at Quail Hollow in Charlotte, N.C., and next month’s U.S. Open at Oakmont near Pittsburgh. And, of course, there’s the British Open, which returns to Portrush in July.
Claiming the Truist would also further endear Lowry to Philadelphia. He’s already been a favorite of the patrons at Cricket. Kelce said he’d been a fan long before they played nine holes together, and Lowry said he enjoyed his time with the former Eagle-turned-multimedia-celebrity.
“Great fella,” Lowry said of Kelce. “Obviously I knew who he was before, but I’ll be honest, I had to read up quite a bit the night before about what he’d achieved and all that. Look, everybody knows who the Kelce brothers are now.”
Last Halloween, Lowry dressed up as Travis Kelce because his daughter is a Taylor Swift fan. She went as the pop superstar and Kelce girlfriend and Lowry already had the beard and similar look.
“They’re a little bit bigger than I am,” Lowry said of the Kelce brothers. “I wouldn’t fancy them running at me.”
Lowry, a Manchester United fan, might not know much about American football, but he knows about the connection a professional athlete can have with his followers.
“It seems like, wow, he’s loved around here, isn’t he?” Lowry said. “That’s pretty cool about him. That’s what I really liked about him is how much of a hometown hero he is here and how much he embraces it all was pretty cool.”
Lowry has embraced the old track in Flourtown and, on Friday, the tough conditions. In two days, he may hear cheers that only Kelce and other Philly champions have heard.