Shane Lowry penalized at Open after ball appears to move - ESPN

PORTRUSH, Northern Ireland — Ireland's Shane Lowry was assessed a two-stroke penalty following his second round at the Open Championship on Friday after the broadcast video feed appeared to show his ball moving slightly when he took a practice swing in the rough on the 12th hole.

Lowry made par on the hole before the penalty. The two-shot deduction took him from a 1-under 69 to a 1-over 71 and placed him at even par for the championship, making the cut by one shot.

«It's obviously very disappointing,» Lowry said. «I felt like I played really, really well today. And yeah, that's hard to take.»

The 2019 Open champion at Royal Portrush said he was unaware that the ball moved or that there was any issue until he was walking up the 15th fairway and a rules official approached him to say there was a possibility his ball moved on his second shot on the 12th.

«I've asked him, 'How many shots penalty is that if it did?' and he said, 'Two,'» Lowry said. «Obviously then I feel like I'm on the cut mark then, which is not very nice. I feel like I played well on the way in and then obviously waited to see.»

After a 20-minute wait and discussion inside the scoring tent with rules officials and his playing partners, Scottie Scheffler and Collin Morikawa, Lowry emerged and the ruling was announced.

«I had to take it… I wasn't arguing my case, but I'm disappointed that they don't have more camera angles on it,» Lowry said. «The one zoomed in slow motion — they're trying to tell me if it doesn't move from the naked eye, if you don't see it moving, it didn't move. I told them I definitely was looking down towards the ball as I was taking that practice swing, and I didn't see it move.»

Lowry added that he felt like he took his practice swing