Shane Lowry braces for weekend battle after gritty performance at Royal Troon

Lowry added a second round of 69 to his opening 66 for a halfway total of seven under par which looked insurmountable due to a strengthening wind causing havoc for the later starters.

The 2019 winner recovered from a double bogey on the 11th with birdies on the 16th and 18th to hold a two-shot lead over England's Daniel Brown, the surprise first-round leader battling to a 72.

Lowry felt he had "done the hard part" on the 11th, named "The Railway" due to the adjacent Glasgow to Ayr trainline, by getting his tee shot in play and finding a good lie in the rough, but was distracted by a cameraman on his second shot and pulled it into the gorse.

After taking a long, deep breath, Lowry took a penalty drop and hit his fourth shot to around 10 feet to give himself a chance to salvage a bogey, only for his original ball to be found by a spectator.

That meant it was still in play and, after a long delay while it was determined where he could best take a drop, Lowry hit his approach just short of the green and eventually completed a double-bogey six.

Former Ryder Cup player David Howell, the on-course commentator with Lowry's group for Sky Sports, said the spectator who found the ball was "being a little sheepish" when he realised Lowry did not want that to happen, adding: "He's feeling awful."

"I hit a great provisional," Lowry explained. "The referee asked me going down [the fairway] did I want to find my first one, and I said no. So I assumed that was OK.

"Then we get down there and somebody had found it, so apparently you have to go and identify it. I thought if you declared it lost before it was found, that you didn't.

"[But] I felt like through that whole process of that 20 minutes of seeing where I could drop I felt like I was very calm and composed and really knew that I was doing the right thing.

"And I felt like Darren [Reynolds, his caddie] did a great job too, he kept telling me we have loads of time, we don't need to rush this. We just need to do the right thing here.

"To be honest, I was happy enough leaving there with a six. It wasn't a disaster. I was still leading the tournament. I have felt quite calm and composed the last couple of days. I've felt really in my comfort zone.

"Sometimes you are in a frame of mind where you get on with it better than other times. This week in my head feels like that, where I think I'm ready to take what comes, take what's given to me out there.

"Anything that's thrown at me, I feel like I'm ready to take it on the chin and move on. I just have to deal with it and try and make the best of it and see where it leads me.

"I'm pretty happy with how things have gone. The job tomorrow is to try to put myself in a position to win this tournament on Sunday, and that's what I'll try and do.

"If I give myself a chance on Sunday I know I can do it and that's as good as a position to be in as any."

World number one Scottie Scheffler, fellow American Billy Horschel and South Africa's Dean Burmester were five shots off the lead on two under par, with Jason Day and Xander Schauffele among those on one under.