Shane Lowry gets rough TV deal as he charges into RBC Heritage contention

Many golf fans here were blaming Sky Sports, but their hands were tied.

Shane Lowry has kicked on from his third place showing at the US Masters with another strong outing at the RBC Heritage. The Clara native finished third at Augusta National, moving him up to 30th in the world rankings. Rather than taking a week off, as many other leading golfers opted to do, Lowry wanted to keep going while his form was good. He had a strong opening round of 66 on a day that Cameron Young starred with a 63 to lead the way. Friday was more of a grind as Lowry finished on 72. After that +1 round, he told reporters:

"I just need to go out and do my thing. I think I've been playing good enough golf... I need to focus on keeping the ball in play and just taking my birdies when I get them, because I think I'm playing the golf good enough to kind of maybe challenge at the weekend. We'll see how that goes."

Saturday's third round was a vast improvement, though. Lowry carded eight birdies and two bogeys in a round of 66 that shot him up to -10 and third place on his own, behind Harold Varner III and Patrick Cantlay. CBS, who was covering the tournament, did feature one sweet Lowry shot, on the 18, as he set himself up for a birdie putt he would duly dispatch to finish on -10. https://twitter.com/GOLFonCBS/status/1515418206839709696

Shane Lowry not getting much of a TV look-in

The only issue for Lowry fans on another positive day was the lack of TV coverage for the 35-year-old. Many golf fans took to Twitter to complain about the rough TV deal for the 2019 Open champion. https://twitter.com/paulnelson_2/status/1515413245963776011 https://twitter.com/JohnYoung9999/status/1515413214284165125 https://twitter.com/adams_gg_bets2/status/1515412721218564109 It took RTE golf correspondent Greg Allen to explain that it was not necessarily Sky Sports making the production call to go shy of Lowry, despite his third round charge. https://twitter.com/gregallenRTE/status/1515412902378975238 Let us hope that the American broadcasters opt to show a bit more of Lowry, and other non locals that are showing form at a tournament that will give the winner a cheque of $1.44million.

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