Rory McIlroy and Shane Lowry started their Zurich Classic of New Orleans title defense with a composed performance on Thursday. This PGA Tour event has become a unique fixture on the tour since 2017 when it began featuring two-man teams playing four-ball (best ball) in the first and third rounds and foursomes (alternate shot) in the second and final rounds.
McIlroy, who won the Masters earlier this month, teamed up with fellow countryman Shane Lowry again as the pair set their sights on winning their second Zurich Classic in as many years.
Defending Champions Off to Steady Start
McIlroy and Lowry made birdies on three of their first four holes of the day after they started on the 10th hole. Lowry then nearly holed out for an eagle on the par-5 18th hole. He followed a tap-in birdie with another birdie on their first hole and then an eagle on the second hole to push their score to 7 under.
The defending champions thought they were on their way to the top of the leaderboard when Lowry holed a 23-foot birdie on the fourth hole. However, both of them hit their tee shots on the sixth hole into the water. This led to a bogey on a day when putting a square around a score instead of a circle felt like a gut punch. The pair eventually finished with an 8-under 64. This left the countrymen five shots behind the tournament’s early leaders, Rasmus and Nicolai Hojgaard, after the Danish twins shot the second 59 in Zurich Classic history.
“Shane got off to a really good start. I didn’t do anything,” McIlroy said afterwards.
“Shane joked I could have got a couple extra hours in bed if I wanted to. I played a bit better coming in. It was okay. We felt like we left a few shots out there, but we were just saying the two foursomes days on Friday and Sunday here are the important days in this tournament, and it’s important for us to obviously post a good score tomorrow,” the 35-year-old added.
McIlroy And Lowry Hoping to Make History
McIlroy and Lowry will be hoping to make history by becoming the first team to ever win the Zurich Classic back-to-back. Although the pair could have done better on Thursday, they did enough to position themselves well going into the weekend.
“You always know in four-ball, especially early Thursday morning, the golf course is probably going to play at its easiest. You’ve got to get out there and shoot a score,” Lowry said.
“We got off to a nice start and then we got a little bit slow towards the end of the front nine and then we caught fire – Rory caught fire early on our back nine and then we lost a bit of momentum towards the end.”
“It was one of those days where you do want to go low, (but) I think the two foursomes days in this tournament are huge. That’s what separates the field. Hopefully we can go out tomorrow and shoot a good score and work from there to the weekend,” he added.
Main Photo Credit: © Matthew Hinton-Imagn Images
