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Golf Monthly

Sport

Elliott Heath

'That's Hard To Take' - Shane Lowry Reacts To Two-Stroke Penalty At The Open

Shane Lowry Open RA Scottie Scheffler Golf

Shane Lowry with his hands on his hips at The Open.

Shane Lowry has received a two-stroke penalty for causing his ball to move in the rough during the second round of the 2025 Open.

The 2019 Open champion was in the rough down the left of the par-5 12th when his ball appeared to slightly roll back after taking a practice swing.

Video footage emerged on social media of the incident, with Lowry said to have been told by an R&A official that a ruling would be assessed after the round.

It was confirmed by the R&A that Lowry had received a one-stroke penalty for causing his ball to move and a further one-stroke penalty for not replacing it back to its original spot.

Shane Lowry ruling: R&A statement

During Round Two, Shane Lowry’s ball was seen to have moved while he was taking a practice swing for his second shot from the rough at the 12th hole.

The Rules require three things to be assessed in such situations:

1. Did the ball leave its original position and come to rest on another spot?

2. Was the ball’s movement to another spot discernible to the naked eye?

and 3. If the ball did come to rest on another spot and the movement was discernible to the naked eye, is it known or virtually certain that the player’s actions caused the ball to move?

Assessing whether the movement of the ball was visible to the naked eye in such a situation assumes the player being in a normal address position for the stroke.

In Shane Lowry’s situation, the movement of the ball to another spot, including the movement of the logo, was discernible to the naked eye.

The naked eye test is satisfied whether or not the player was looking at the ball when it moved.

It was clear that the ball moved immediately after the player’s club touched foliage close to the ball during a practice swing and that the player’s actions caused the ball to move.

In these circumstances there is a one stroke penalty and the ball must be replaced.

However, as the ball was played from the spot where it was moved to, the player played from a wrong place and incurs a total penalty of two strokes."

'It's obviously very disappointing'

Lowry said after his round that he did not see the ball move and didn't fully agree with the ruling, but he accepted it because he didn't want his name to be "talked about or tossed around like that."

"Well, I didn't know anything happened until walking up the 15th fairway and then the rules official came over and told me that there was a possibility the ball moved on the 12th for my second shot," Lowry said.

"So I said - I've asked him, how many shot penalty is that if it did, and he said, two. Obviously then I feel like I'm on the cut mark then, which is not very nice.

"I feel like I played well on the way in and then obviously waited to see. I mean, yeah, I was in there with the rules official and wasn't arguing my case, but I'm disappointed that they don't have more camera angles on it.

"The one zoomed in slow motion - they're trying to tell me if it doesn't move from the naked eye, if you don't see it moving, it didn't move.

"I told them I definitely was looking down towards the ball as I was taking that practice swing, and I didn't see it move. But I had to take the penalty because - I'm still not sure, to be honest, whether it was or not, but I had to take the penalty because I can't have my name talked about or tossed around like that, and I just get on with it.

"It's obviously very disappointing. I felt like I played really, really well today. And yeah, that's hard to take. Look, I'll just have to dust myself off and get out there tomorrow and give it a go."

"Ultimately in golf it's up to the player, and I felt like Shane was put in a pretty tough situation there when they were zooming in on his golf ball," Lowry's playing partner Scottie Scheffler said.

"In the rough it's hard to tell. From what I looked at very briefly on the video, it looked like it was very difficult to see if the ball was moving - sorry. If the ball moved. The camera was kind of zooming in as stuff was happening.

"One of the great things about the game of golf is that you call your penalties on yourself. This situation, I think it was just - it was a very tough spot for Shane to be put in.

"He handled it really well. It's obviously very frustrating. It's frustrating for me as a competitor of his and a player to watch him after kind of deal with that because the last thing you want to be known in the game of golf is somebody who cheats.

"I'm not going to state a strong opinion here in the media on whether or not I thought he deserved the penalty, but all I'm going to say is it was a very tough situation."

Lowry's score on the par-5 12th was officially changed from a par to a double-bogey 7.

It means he signed for a one-over-par 72 instead of a one-under-par 70 and fell to level-par for the championship.