Rory McIlroy and Shane Lowry surged into competition on the Zurich Traditional of New Orleans staff occasion on Saturday with an 11-under spherical of 61 at TPC Louisiana.
The pair discovered 4 birdies and an eagle on an excellent opening 9 holes, backing that up with 4 extra birdies on the tenth, eleventh, thirteenth, and fifteenth.
They suffered a setback on the par-three seventeenth with the primary bogey of the day however got here again in sensational trend with McIlroy holing a monster 30ft eagle putt on the 18th to maintain them up close to the highest.
It was McIlroy who got here up with 5 of the birdie putts plus the eagle, with Lowry including three birdies too and an eagle on the par-five seventh.
“Yeah, I feel like we played pretty well today, I think,” Lowry stated.
“There was numerous holes the place each of us had possibilities. Yeah, we went out and we did what we needed to do.
“Look, we knew we had been going to must exit and shoot a extremely low rating as we speak. There’s not a lot wind on the market, and the course is pretty gettable, and in four-balls you need to be capturing not less than 10-under.
“I was pretty happy to have Rory go out and eagle the last there. It makes dinner taste nicer and kind of puts us in a great position going into tomorrow.”
There was the added ingredient for McIlroy that his eagle putt on the 18th got here after a 90-minute rain delay as a result of lightning, the Masters champion admitting he didn’t give an excessive amount of thought to what was to come back as he waited.
“I think the secret is not thinking about it in those 90 minutes,” McIlroy stated.
“We had a bit of lunch and we were watching some highlights from last year and talking about a bunch of — where we’re going to go for dinner tonight. The last thing on my mind during the delay was the putt, and then once I got back out there, I sort of concentrated on it and made sure I did what I needed to do and just a bonus for it to go in.”
Remarkably, no staff has defended their Zurich Traditional title however McIlroy and Lowry could possibly be the primary to try this in the event that they again up a powerful transferring day on Sunday.
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