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.
All smiles from @ShaneLowryGolf after this shot. pic.twitter.com/j0jPv5Q4av
— Golf on CBS ⛳ (@GolfonCBS) April 16, 2022
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.
@SkySportsGolf any chance of showing a bit of @ShaneLowryGolf on the box? He’s doing rather well
— Paul Nelson (@paulnelson_2) April 16, 2022
@SkySportsGolf any chance of showing big shane lowry ffs
— John Young (@JohnYoung9999) April 16, 2022
@SkySportsGolf any chance of seeing @ShaneLowryGolf a bit he’s 2 off the lead and we’ve barely seen him
— Ads (@adams_gg_bets2) April 16, 2022
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.
It’s not Sky’s fault Denis. They have no unilateral cameras there on the golf …. It’s American TV feed..…Varner, Cantlay, Streb…… it’s a 3 man tournament and like so many things with the PGA Tour, they are truly myopic in their coverage …and they are unapologetic about it….
— Greg Allen (@gregallenRTE) April 16, 2022
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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