Q. Can you give us your thoughts on a pretty tough afternoon out there?
SHANE LOWRY: Yeah, it was tough, the two days. Shooting 1-over how I played yesterday was pretty disappointing, and then I was behind the black ball after a few holes today. I battled well. I'm proud of myself for playing the last six holes in 1-under to make the cut, and yeah, hopefully go out there and have a decent weekend.
Q. Here for the weekend, what's possible for you now?
SHANE LOWRY: Oh, I don't know. Depends on what happens this afternoon. It's so hard out there. It's honestly a lot of guesswork, a lot of luck involved. It's hard to hole putts. It's hard to hit it close. There's a lot of luck involved out there today. The wind is all over the place. I've never seen it like this. That was probably the toughest two days of golf that I've played. I'll sleep well tonight.
Q. Can you elaborate on what it's like to play in the wind?
SHANE LOWRY: It's just hard. It's hard to pick a wind and it's hard to get it right if we were playing around a normal golf course, but you're playing around Augusta National, where you have to be so precise, as well.
You're trying to pitch the ball; you don't have much to pitch the ball in. Yeah, it's just -- you can be made to look like an idiot out there today by not doing too much wrong.
Look, I'm not overly happy with my two days' work, but I'm here for the weekend, and I'll give it a run.
Q. (Inaudible).
SHANE LOWRY: Yeah, huge. Yeah, I actually said to myself going down 10, if I can par the next three holes, I'll give myself a couple of chances on the way in. 12 you're just hitting and praying today. Like I probably should have hit 9-iron, but you get a gust the wrong way, and it'll barely make the water, let alone carry it.
I bogeyed 12 but then gave myself a few chances on the way in, and I'm very happy the way I played when I needed to.
Q. Did you see that putt on 10 (indiscernible).
SHANE LOWRY: Yeah, the wind is just blowing. I can't imagine what it was doing to poor Akshay. It was blowing me around the place. He nearly got blown away.
Yeah, the wind is just -- to be honest, the hardest part out there is putting. I find anyway. The hardest part out there is to hole putts. I've got 10 feet down the hill on 18, one of the easiest putts you can get. I said to Darren, I've hit it this putt. I know what this putt does. It never moves as much as you think. I still couldn't manage to hit a good putt and hole it. It's just hard.
Q. Pleased with that birdie on 14?
SHANE LOWRY: 14, yeah, because it was in the rough and I said to Darren before I hit my second shot, I'm not sure I can actually hit the green here because I thought it was going to come out and release over the back, but it actually come out lovely and soft and pitched in a perfect spot.
Like I said earlier, a bit of luck involved in that, and it went down to four feet and I holed that.
Yeah, I gave myself a good chance on 15, hit a decent putt. Good two-putt on 16. Good chances on 17 and 18.
I played all the golf. I played good enough golf to be nearly on the leaderboard or on the leaderboard the last two days. It's just my scoring.
I played the par-5s all right today. I was 2-under for them, 1-under for them yesterday. You probably need to be a little bit better.
Q. The wind switched direction today from yesterday. How hard does that make 13 and 15 to try to capitalize?
SHANE LOWRY: Yeah, I mean, like 15 is straight in. It's the hardest wedge shot in the world off that downslope to that pin. Honestly if you're three or four yards out, you're in the water, and if you're three or four yards the other way, you're over the back of the green. You're struggling to make 5.
Yeah, you'll actually probably see a lot of lads going for 15 and trying to take the water out of play with their second shot if they can. I didn't have a club to do that today, but yeah, it's hard.
Look, there's nowhere to bail out. It's just hard out there. It's an absolute battle. Like Darren said, if you're talking in boxing terms, walking up 18, he said, you'd think it was round 12 today, not round 2. It was tough.
Q. Was this a harder wind than yesterday?
SHANE LOWRY: I don't know. It was both really hard.
Q. You're playing catch-up; is there a score in your mind for tomorrow?
SHANE LOWRY: Yeah, you go out there and try and break 70 and try to have the best week you possibly can. You look at it from here, I have 27 holes to get myself into position to maybe make a run at it on Sunday.
You never know what's going to happen. You see someone shoot 7-under the first day, you automatically think it's going to be in the teens winning, but not around here. So we'll see what happens over the next two days. Stranger things have happened around here, and mad stuff has happened. Yeah.
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