Shane Lowry missed the cut at the PGA Championship and left Quail Hollow fuming at a piece of bad luck and an ESPN reporter.
The World No.10, who arrived in North Carolina with high hopes following his tied second finish at the Truist Championship last week, lost his temper on the course and later he let rip at someone who he thought became a "bit too involved" with a rules incident.
Lowry was one under for his round when a decent drive rolled into another player’s pitch mark at the short par-4 8th.
Unaware of what had happened, the Irishman asked for a ruling but was denied relief by the official, after which he dumped a short pitch into a bunker.
He took an angry swipe at the turf and was heard shouting "f*** this place".
Shane Lowry not given relief for an embedded ball.The result:pic.twitter.com/racmmGkcCvMay 16, 2025
Lowry went on to make bogey and his level-par 71 wasn't good enough to secure him a weekend tee time.
"You hit a lovely tee shot and you're not expecting that," he said of his ball ending up in another player’s pitch mark," he told the Irish Independent.
Under Rule 16.3 you are permitted relief from an embedded lie only when your ball has settled in its own pitch mark, although this wasn't really what Lowry had a problem with.
Asked about his bad break, Lowry said, per the Irish Independent: "It was just that the ESPN guy was a bit too in there involved when he wasn't asked to be and that's what annoyed me a lot.
"I was just asking the referee and the ESPN guy comes straight over and he's like, ‘That’s not your pitch mark’. And I'm like, ‘That's not for you to talk about'. That's for me to call a rules official and decide what happens.
"I just said, the rules official, what happens to the guy at 7:10 who's not on ESPN Live? I guarantee you he's down there arguing that’s his pitch mark.
"I don't want a drop because it's not my pitch mark. But I'm just saying. And it goes back to (the fact that) I had a lot of mud balls again today.
"It looks like a fresh pitch mark that I was in, but it also looked like there's a fresh one beside it.
Lowry, who became agitated at The Masters last month when he was immediately asked about Rory McIlroy following his disappointing finish to the third round, added: "I wasn't arguing that it was my pitch mark.
"I was trying to be 100 per cent, because imagine if I had to come in and all of a sudden somebody told me that was your pitch mark and there's this one guy whose producers tell him it isn’t?
"So you need to be just careful about what you're doing, because there's so much at stake."
