Open Championship: ‘Hot headed’ Shane Lowry shrugs off cameraman clash to roar ahead but Rory McIlroy flames out

Rivals and cameramen, make way – Shane Lowry is coming through at the Open Championship.

Rivals and cameramen, make way – Shane Lowry is coming through at the Open Championship. The Irishman lifted the red mist that momentarily descended upon him at Royal Troon in Scotland to wrestle control of the major, as his second round two-under 69 on Friday sent him into the weekend with a two shot lead. After opening with a bogey-free 66 on Thursday, 2019 champion Lowry had been motoring along smoothly at the summit before his advantage was derailed by a disastrous 30-minute saga on the notorious par-four 11th “Railway” hole. Having narrowly survived sending his tee shot onto the train tracks that run alongside the 488-yard hole, the world No. 33 went from frying pan to fire as his subsequent effort from the rough went careening left into the thick gorse across the other side of the fairway. A visibly disgruntled Lowry then gesticulated and pointed animatedly at a nearby cameraman, later admitting that he had – no pun intended – “lost his train of thought” after becoming “a little distracted” while stood over his shot. “There was a cameraman there, and he was walking up. I asked him to stop or move back, and he just kind of stayed there,” Lowry told reporters on his return to the clubhouse.