Shane Lowry charges up 2026 Cognizant Classic leaderboard on Moving Day eying first solo win in four years
CBSN
Lowry shot a 63 on Saturday, moving into a tie with Austin Smotherman in the top spot at PGA National
An early start to beat the storms meant players were treated to ideal scoring conditions on Saturday at the 2026 Cognizant Classic. While plenty went low and improved their standing, no one did more damage than Shane Lowry, who shot an 8-under 63 to take the lead alone at 13 under going into Sunday's final round.
Lowry is eying his first solo win anywhere since capturing the 2022 BMW PGA Championship in Europe and first in a PGA Tour-sanctioned tournament since the 2019 Open Championship.
After struggling mightily with the putter on the West Coast, Lowry finally had a breakthrough on the greens on Saturday, gaining more than 2.1 strokes on the field with his putter. He seems much more comfortable back on Bermuda grass in his adopted home state of Florida. A strong putting performance combined with continued excellent ball-striking is the formula for going low, and Lowry was aggressive from the start of his third round, opening with a birdie and adding four more on the front nine to go out in 30.
Lowry added another on the 10th, and then, after a string of pars, closed with a flourish with birdies on the 17th and 18th to post the low round of the day with a bogey-free 63.
"Everything went pretty well, especially early on. I hit the ball in the fairway a lot yesterday, and I missed a few fairways early today, but I holed a few nice putts at the start," Lowry said. "Then I started hitting the ball really well and giving myself lots of chances and converted a few, and I felt like it was just a really nice, solid round of golf. Birdieing the last two was kind of the icing on the cake."
