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Shane Lowry has criticised Patrick Cantlay for his behaviour during their singles match on Sunday at the Ryder Cup.
The former Open champion was aggravated by the FedEx Cup champ’s antics in geeing up the crowd at Whistling Straits as the Americans cantered to a modern record 19-9 at Whistling Straits.
Speaking to Paddy Power, Lowry said: “Patrick Cantlay riling up the crowd on the eighth hole whilst I was lining up my putt annoyed me quite a lot. I didn’t feel that it was good from him, but it is what it is.
“In Rome, we’ll hopefully win and win in a different style, that’s how I’m looking at it.
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“They used the crowd to their advantage last week and it obviously it worked for them. It was hard to play golf in that atmosphere. If we were doing something good, you didn’t know about it or hear about it. The very minute they did something good, you’d hear roars because the matches are so close together. You just hear cheers and you just think ‘oh that’s another hole lost’ but it is what it is.”
Lowry, one of the few standout performers for the European team in what was a chastening loss, also had words for Bryson DeChambeau who appeared to be aggrieved by Tommy Fleetwood and Viktor Hovland’s decision not to concede a short putt to him during Saturday afternoon’s fourballs.
The 2020 US Open champion theatrically laid his putter down on the green after holing his 2ft 7in putt as if to suggest that it was within a shaft’s length of the hole and, therefore, qualified for a gimme.
Not so, according to Lowry.
“For a start Bryson Dechambeau’s putter shaft is about four feet long so it was definitely not a gimme,” said the Irishman. “Justin Thomas did the same thing and then I did the same thing but purely because Justin Thomas did it. They made me hit a putt from literally 18 inches on the first so I did the exact same thing as Thomas did just because I was annoyed with the picture I’d seen of him that morning.
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“The problem was, every time an American putted inside six feet, I was getting booed if I didn’t give it to them. They obviously played up to the crowd.
“I wasn’t giving them anything last week because I was getting booed. I was playing with Tyrrell Hatton on Saturday afternoon and he wanted to give them a couple of balls and I said, ‘No, let’s just let them see the ball in’. It was a bit of gamesmanship from me as well.
“I was just Trying to annoy them and get in their heads as well but it obviously didn’t work. I’m disappointed with the scoreline because I think we deserved more than that because we were a great team, a great unit. We just didn’t perform as well as we should’ve.”
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