Lowry followed the lowest opening round of his major career, a five-under 66, with an impressive two-under 69 on Friday morning at Royal Troon to move to seven under and bolster his hopes of winning The Open for the second time in five years.

The Irishman reached the turn two ahead after a front-nine 34 before losing his outright advantage with a double-bogey at the par-four 11th, only to recover with two birdies in his last four holes to hold the halfway lead at The Open for the first time since his 2019 win.

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"Sometimes you are in a frame of mind where you get on with it better than other times," Lowry said. "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."

Explained: Lowry's double-bogey chaos at the 11th

Lowry held a two-shot advantage when he sent his tee shot at the 11th into the rough, but he felt he had "done the hard part" on the hole named "The Railway" due to its proximity to the train line.

He was distracted by a cameraman and pulled it way left into a bush, then hit his fourth shot to around 10 feet before his original ball was found by a spectator and made the provisional void.

There was a lengthy delay to decide where Lowry would take his drop, where he then finished short of the green with his approach and needed to get up and down to limit the damage.

"I hit a great provisional," Lowry said. "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 okay. 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] through that whole process of 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 that 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."

Lowry holds a two-shot lead over Brown, who stayed in contention with a one-over 72, while Justin Rose and world No 1 Scottie Scheffler are among the chasing pack heading into the final two rounds.

"I'm not sure Scottie Scheffler is too worried about anyone with the form he's in," Lowry joked. "He's obviously on the leaderboard, and he's one person that people are going to be talking about. There's some other guys there as well.

"I see Justin Rose going well, and this guy Daniel Brown, I've never played with him, but obviously he had a great day yesterday and looks to be going all right today. I think if I give myself a chance on Sunday, I know I can do it. That's as good a position to be in as any."

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