British Open 2024: Leader Shane Lowry gets off rails at 11 with lengthy, crazy double

Royal Troon’s par-4 11th hole, nicknamed “The Railway,” has historically been one of the most difficult holes in the Open Championship rota.

Shane Lowry can now attest.

Lowry’s second round, perhaps fittingly, got off the rails at No. 11 on Friday as Lowry saw his two-shot lead evaporate after a long and crazy sequence that involved a cameraman, a yanked shot into the gorse, a provisional that was later negated and ultimately, a double bogey.

Here’s how it all unfolded: Lowry’s tee ball found the right fescue, and though it appeared that Lowry had a decent chance to muscle his second shot the 177 yards to the hole, his shot produced a large chunk of grass and a ball shooting out low and left and right into the left gorse.

Lowry was suddenly fuming, shouting at a cameraman who apparently distracted the leader.

“As I was over the ball, I could just see you with the f—ing camera up!” Lowry told the cameraman. “Just get back there! F—’s sake!”

Lowry explained afterward: “I did a nice lie in the rough. I got a little bit distracted on the right just as I was over the shot, and I kind of lost a bit of train of thought. You’re so afraid of going right there that I just snagged the club and went left.”

With his ball likely lost, Lowry reloaded and declared a provisional. That shot, his fourth at the time, ran up onto the green and about 20 feet past the hole. However, soon after a spectator found Lowry’s original ball in the prickly stuff.

“He would’ve preferred not to have found that ball,” NBC Sports analyst Paul McGinley said.

What ensued was a lengthy process that included Lowry calling in a second rules official and even walking as far back as the adjacent 12th fairway as he sized up where he’d have to take his unplayable drop.

“You can declare a ball lost, but when it’s actually found, it is the ball in play,” R&A rules official Charlie Maran said. “The provisional ball that he did play now becomes a wrong ball. So, he has to take his options with his original ball.”

Finally, after over 20 minutes since he hit his second shot, Lowry dropped and hit his new fourth shot. From about 70 yards, Lowry came up just short of the green. He then got up and down for a roundabout double to drop back to 5 under and into a tie with Daniel Brown.

“I felt like through that whole process of that 20 minutes … I felt like I was very calm and composed and really knew that I was doing the right thing,” Lowry said. “It wasn’t a disaster. I was still leading the tournament.”