Lowry storms into contention at US Masters

SHANE Lowry has stormed into serious contention at the US Masters in Augusta. He is in fourth place, just two shots behind the leaders, Cameron Young and Rory McIlroy as they head into today's final round.

The Clara man had a sensational third round, shooting -4 with a hole in one at the par three sixth transforming his round. That ace put him into joint second at that stage and he reflected afterwards: “That's wild, isn't it? Made one a couple of weeks ago in Houston. You don't ever expect to make a hole-in-one. I just couldn't believe it. Obviously, you know, you're out there, and you're in the hunt at the Masters and you're making hole-in-one, it's pretty cool.”

The third round is known as “moving day” and that was certainly the case on Saturday as the defending champion Rory McIlroy came back into the pack after an overnight lead of six shots.

McIlroy is still joint top with Young on -11 with American Sam Burns one shot back on -10. Lowry is on -9 with Jason Day and Justin Rose on -8. Scottie Scheffler and HT Li are joint seventh on -7 and all of these players are live contenders for the final round.

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There is also a group of players on -6 and -5 and they can't be ruled out, though they will need to go very low to succeed.

Lowry also had birdies on 2, 8, 10 and 14 on Saturday while bogeys on 9 and 11 stopped him from climbing higher.

After a series of devastating near misses this year, Lowry is now in the ideal position of coming up from behind and has a great chance of winning his second major title, having won the British Open in 2019.

Lowry will tee off with Sam Burns at 7.14pm Irish this this evening, just before McIlroy and Young.