Shane Lowry hits out at TV reporter after foul-mouthed PGA outburst

“F**k this place.”

That was Shane Lowry’s withering verdict on Quail Hollow Club as his 2025 PGA Championship prospects ended at the halfway stage.

The Irishman will sit out the weekend of the second men’s major of the year after rounds of 73 and 71 left him one shot outside the cutline.

It continues a desperate string of results for the former Open champion at the North Carolina venue. In his previous six visits, he has missed two cuts and managed a best finish of T34.

It was an incident at the eighth hole on Friday that prompted his X-rated outburst. After a huge drive left him left him 60 yards short of the green, he arrived at his ball to find it had nestled in a pitch mark – a consequence of the downpours that had deluged the course earlier in the week.

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Unable to take relief, he flubbed his chip and, after slamming his club into the ground and swearing loudly, ended up carding bogey

After his round, the 38-year-old provided some context to the outburst.

Speaking to media on the ground, Lowry explained that an inside-the-ropes reporter for host broadcaster ESPN had got unnecessarily involved.

“It was just that the ESPN guy was a bit too in there involved when he wasn’t asked to be and that’s what annoyed me a lot,” he told the Irish Independent.

“I was just asking the referee and the ESPN guy comes straight over and he’s like, ‘That’s not your pitch mark’. And I’m like, ‘That’s not for you to talk about. That’s for me to call a rules official and decide what happens.'”

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“I just said, to the rules official, what happens to the guy at 7:10 who’s not on ESPN Live?

“I guarantee you he’s down there arguing that’s his pitch mark. I don’t want a drop because it’s not my pitch mark. But I’m just saying.”

Had Lowry’s ball come to rest in his own pitch mark, he would have been entitled to embedded ball relief.

“It looks like a fresh pitch mark that I was in, but it also looked like there’s a fresh one beside it,” he added. “So look, I wasn’t arguing that it was my pitch mark. I was trying to be 100% sure because imagine if I had to come in and all of a sudden somebody told me that was your pitch mark and there’s this one guy whose producers tell him it isn’t.

“You need to be just careful about what you’re doing, because there’s so much at stake.”

Michael McEwan is bunkered's Head of Content and has been part of the team since 2004. In that time, he has interviewed almost every major figure within the sport, from Jack Nicklaus, to Rory McIlroy, to Donald Trump. The host of the multi award-winning bunkered Podcast and a member of Balfron Golfing Society, Michael is the author of three books and is the 2023 PPA Scotland 'Writer of the Year' and 'Columnist of the Year'. Dislikes white belts, yellow balls and iron headcovers. Likes being drawn out of the media ballot to play Augusta National.

Head of Content