The First Look: Arnold Palmer Invitational presented by Mastercard

PORTRUSH, Northern Ireland – After sending Shane Lowry off the 18th green with a standing ovation, the fans jammed against a white fence to watch him fulfill the customary duties of a 54-hole leader. His countrymen stood 20 deep, craning for a view of their hero. Others climbed atop a small hill to catch a glimpse as he did his post-round interviews. An Irish flag was hung from the temporary barrier that stood between them and the man who’d just set the course record at the renovated Royal Portrush that is hosting this week’s Open Championship. The crowd cheered and chanted, heartily singing, “Ole! Ole! Ole!â€� and “If you love Shane Lowry, clap your hands.â€� They were celebrating as if Lowry already had the Claret Jug in his hands. He thrilled them with a back-nine 30, including birdies on Nos. 15-17, but The Open is still far from being decided. Related: Leaderboard | Ominous weather moves up final-round tee times | Koepka looms, but has to make putts Lowry will start Sunday with a four-shot lead over England’s Tommy Fleetwood and six-shot advantage over the next player on the leaderboard, J.B. Holmes. Lowry’s 19-under 197 is the lowest 54-hole score in The Open’s history. He leads the field in greens hit, missing just nine in three rounds. His play has been impressive, but he knows first-hand what can happen in the final round. Lowry has led a major on one other occasion, losing a four-shot lead in the final round of the 2016 U.S. Open at Oakmont. He is playing on home soil this time. The reception Lowry received around the grounds of Royal Portrush showed the unifying power of sport. There has been a lot of talk this week about Ireland’s sectarian divide and this Open’s greater significance, but none of that mattered Saturday. Lowry and his Northern Irish caddie represent the last local hope for the fans, and they did their best to carry him across the line. A day earlier, those same fans tried to cheer Rory McIlroy to the correct side of the cut line. They had to watch as Darren Clarke tripled the last hole to miss the cut. Portrush member Graeme McDowell is still around but out of contention. The crowd’s full force will be behind Lowry. “It’s going to be nuts,â€� his caddie, Bo Martin, said. Such energy and enthusiasm can either be a help or a hindrance. “Walking from the green to the next tee, the people are literally a yard away from you roaring in your face as loud as they can,â€� Lowry said. “If you have to get up and hit a drive down a tight fairway, it’s fairly difficult. I thought I dealt with it very well today and hopefully I do the same tomorrow.â€� He’ll have enough on his hands. Sunday’s forecast calls for high winds and rain. The forecast is ominous enough for tee times to be moved earlier. From underneath his umbrella, Lowry will have a view of this era’s dominant force in the majors. Brooks Koepka will play alongside Holmes in the second-to-last group. Koepka and Rose, the reigning FedExCup champion, are tied for fourth, seven shots off the lead. “There’s a good leaderboard behind me,â€� Lowry said. “We’ll see what happens.â€� Lowry shot 76 in that final round at Oakmont, finishing three shots behind Dustin Johnson. Lowry says he gave up too quickly when things went south. He bogeyed four of the first 10 holes, but a birdie at 12 put him at 4-under-par, the eventual winning score. Three consecutive bogeys after that resigned him to second place. Lowry knew before he left the 18th green Saturday that he’d face questions about the biggest disappointment of his career. He’s a different man than he was 3 years ago, though. Golf is less important because he knows his wife, Wendy, and 2-year-old daughter, Iris, will be waiting for him behind the 18th green, regardless of the result. “I learned a lot about myself at Oakmont,â€� Lowry said. “I’m going to learn a lot about myself tomorrow. Tomorrow is a huge day in my career. But it probably doesn’t mean as much to me as it did then, which is going to make it a little bit easier. “I think I learned a few things that day about playing in the final round of a major with a lead, that you need to just hang in until the very last minute. You never know what can happen. And I’m going to do the same tomorrow.â€� A win earlier this year in Abu Dhabi – his first since he won his lone PGA TOUR title, at the 2015 World Golf Championships-FedEx St. Jude Invitational – also will help him Sunday. He started the day with a three-shot advantage, but trailed by as many as four shots during the final round. His one-shot victory showed him a mettle that he didn’t know he possessed. “The one thing I got from Oakmont is I laid down and I didn’t show any fight or bottle there. I did that today,â€� he said after the victory. Lowry, the son of a famous Gaelic footballer, has won in front of the home fans before. He was still an amateur when he won the 2009 Irish Open. Now he’ll try to take the same carefree attitude he had back then into the final round of the game’s oldest championship. “Obviously there’s big consequences tomorrow, but you need to play like there’s no consequence,â€� he said. “Like, what’s the worst thing that can happen?â€�

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The hardest part is the uncertainty. Every other time Brandt Snedeker has been sidelined by an injury, like when he was on crutches after having hip surgery, not once, but twice, there was a target date to hold onto. In six weeks, the doctors would tell him, you’ll be hitting balls again. Or, maybe four, they’d say. But there was always a timeline so Snedeker could plan his PGA TOUR comeback. This issue with the manubrium joint in his chest is different, though. Doctors told him he had two options – rest and let it heal or have surgery to insert a metal plate attached to the upper and lower sternum. Snedeker, not surprisingly, chose rest. And therein lies the problem. Doctors can’t tell him definitively when he’ll have rested enough. It’s a wait-and-see proposition made more frustrating by the fact that otherwise, he feels fine. “It’s not restricting my everyday life whatsoever,� Snedeker says. “I’m able to work out. I’m able to do everything I want to do. It’s just the vibration of hitting golf balls that causes pain. “The only way I’m going to figure it out is hitting golf balls again and I need to try and give it as much time as possible to heal.� Snedeker tried to play through it. After all, the doctors told him he couldn’t do any more damage. But he had to withdraw from the Open Championship, the World Golf Championships-Bridgestone Invitational and the PGA. And when he found himself almost flinching when he hit golf balls on the Sunday prior to the Wyndham Championship, Snedeker knew enough was enough. Even though he was ranked 57th in the FedExCup, which he won in 2012, the eight-time TOUR champ decided to call it a season. “You’ve got to be smart and not risk developing a huge problem in your golf game by trying to play through something for a few weeks,� Snedeker says. “It was just time to make sure I got healthy and figure out what was going on with my body. “The last thing I want to do is go out there and not be able to practice the way I want to practice and not put the time in and go through the motions, which is how you create bad habits and lose confidence. “And if you lose confidence at golf, it’s hard to get it back.� So, Snedeker hasn’t hit a golf ball in four weeks. He probably could chip and putt but he’s chosen not to because he doesn’t want to chance trying too much, too soon. “My biggest fear right now is setting myself back,� Snedeker says. He takes medication to try to get the inflammation in the joint to subside. He’s changed his diet an estimated 180 degrees, cutting out sugars and carbohydrates to help it calm down, too.   “It’s been pretty miserable, I’m not going to lie,� Snedeker says. “It’s no fun not being able to eat stuff I like to eat.� Snedeker also wears a bone stimulator for 30 or 40 minutes every day. He describes it as a wrap that goes around his chest. There’s a “halo-looking� device, he says, that sends electric currents into the joint to stimulate healing. “I am doing everything I can to get this thing to heal up and solidify but it’s just such a weird injury, freak thing to have happen,� he says. “With no real trauma to cause it, it’s been a head-scratcher for just about every doctor I’ve been to see.� While being on the sidelines has been difficult professionally, Snedeker has enjoyed the unexpected time with his wife Mandy and their two children, 6-year-old Lily and Austin, who turns 5 next month. He’s been able to devote more time to the Brandt and Mandy Snedeker Foundation that helps children in middle Tennessee, too. “It’s been great to be home with the kids and be a dad again and see what every day life’s been like for them,� Snedeker says. “But I think they’re probably getting tired of me by now.� His absence has not gone unnoticed on TOUR, either. So many of his peers have called and texted to check up on him that Snedeker says he’s been “overwhelmed.� And he’s kept up with his friends on TOUR as a spectator, watching the broadcasts on TV, even though it reminds him of what he’s missing. Snedeker hasn’t been surprised by what he’s seen in the first two Playoffs events. He expected Dustin Johnson, who won THE NORTHERN TRUST, to rise to the occasion in the Playoffs. “He kind of has ebbs and flows like that every year and I thought he was due for another good run,� he says. “It’s pretty impressive to watch … the way he played the back nine and made birdies when he had to.� And Jordan Spieth has been playing “unbelievable golf,� Snedeker says, contending just about every week. Justin Thomas’ rise hasn’t been lost on the 36-year-old, either. “One thing I always thought about Justin, if he ever figured out how to save those shots in a round, he was going to be tough to beat because he makes so many birdies and he’s such a dominant player when he’s playing like that,� Snedeker says. “I guess the switch kind of flipped over this year. “You don’t win a major championship being able to limit your mistakes and he’s kind of figured it out.� Snedeker won’t be playing the BMW Championship next week at Conway Farms for just the second time in the 11-year history of the FedExCup. Ditto for the TOUR Championship at East Lake, which he won in 2012 on the way to pocketing the $10 million bonus. So Snedeker knows all too well what he is missing. “Those are two of my favorite tournaments,� Snedeker says. “Conway’s a great test. … Seems like every year we’ve been there there’s always drama going on, on the last hole. “And East Lake’s such a cool place. It’s kind of bittersweet not being there. … It’s such a cool feeling being there in that event.� Sometime in the next two weeks, though, Snedeker will have an MRI that will hopefully enable him to put together a plan for his return to competition. But he’s not going to get ahead of himself. “It will be a slow process,� Snedeker explains. “It won’t be go hit balls today, play 18 tomorrow. It will be a ball count kind of thing try to see judge how the sternum is going to feel going back into full bore again. “Hopefully I’ll be better suited to handle the stress and the forces I put on my body when swinging a golf club.� And he’ll know when it’s time.

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