AKRON, Ohio – Two weeks after letting the U.S. Open trophy slip through his fingers, Shane Lowry admitted that the rules fiasco that overshadowed the tournament’s conclusion affected his play at Oakmont far more than he originally indicated.
Lowry began the final round with a four-shot lead, but he stumbled to a closing 76 and ultimately finished three shots behind Dustin Johnson. In so doing, he became just the third player in U.S. Open history to forfeit a 54-hole lead of at least four shots, and the first to do so since Payne Stewart in 1998.