SHANE LOWRY BATTLED to make the cut at the Wyndham Championship on Friday, leaving him needing a big weekend at Sedgefield Country Club in Greensboro, North Carolina to make the FedEx Cup play-offs.

Lowry returned to competition a week earlier than planned to try and force his way into the top 70 of the Fed-Ex standings, and a second-round score of 69 leaves him in a tie for 40th place. He will need to fine form over the closing days to make the play-offs, however, with a solo top-15 finish likely needed to fulfill that goal.

But that Lowry is around at the weekend is a success in itself, as he flirted with the wrong side of the cut line in making double-bogey on the par-three 16th. That took him back to even-par and just one shot inside the cut, but a birdie on 18 took him to three-under for the tournament and bought two-shot breathing space. He trails the lead by nine shots, but is three shots outside a tie for 12th. 

Former world number one Justin Thomas, who is also trying to muscle his way into the playoffs from 79th in the standings, went the right direction with a five-under par 65 that put him at five-under 135 heading into the weekend.

At the top of the leaderboard, Russell Henley fired a four-under par 66 to maintain his one-stroke lead. 

Henley couldn’t match the fireworks of his first-round 62 at Sedgefield Country Club in Greensboro, North Carolina.

But his five birdies and one bogey gave him a 12-under par total of 128, one clear of Billy Horschel — who signed for a 62 of his own for 129.

“I would say just off the tee didn’t quite get it in the fairway quite as much,” Henley said of the difference in his rounds so far this week, adding that the back nine played “a little bit more difficult” in drizzly conditions and a changed wind.

Henley, who ended a five-year title drought with his fourth tour victory at Mayakoba, Mexico, in November, said his plan for the weekend would be to “continue the same things: Just committing to my lines, committing to what I decide to hit off the tee and just making the best swing that I can.”

One thing he won’t do is get ahead of himself. He was chasing a wire-to-wire victory at Sedgefield in 2021 when a birdie at the 10th hole on Sunday had him feeling “in control of the tournament.”

Instead he missed the six-man playoff won by Kevin Kisner.

– © AFP 2023, with reporting by Gavin Cooney