Rory McIlroy and Shane Lowry surged into contention at the Zurich Classic of New Orleans team event on Saturday with an 11-under round of 61 at TPC Louisiana.
Andrew Novak and Ben Griffin carded a better-ball 61 to open up a three-stroke lead.
Two closing birdies took them to 27-under-par ahead of the alternate shot final round, three clear of fellow Americans Jake Knapp and Frankie Capan III, plus the Japanese pair Ryo Hisatsune and Takumi Kanaya.
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Rory McIlroy sinks monster putt on the 18th hole to share lead at the Zurich Classic of New Orleans with partner Shane Lowry
But defending champions McIlroy and Lowry found four birdies and an eagle on a brilliant opening nine holes, backing that up with four more birdies on the 10th, 11th, 13th, and 15th to stay in the hunt.
They suffered a setback on the par-three 17th with the first bogey of the day but came back in sensational fashion with McIlroy holing a monster 30ft eagle putt on the 18th to keep them up near the top.
It was McIlroy who came up with five of the birdie putts plus the eagle, with Lowry adding three birdies too and an eagle on the par-five seventh.
“Yeah, I feel like we played pretty well today, I think,” Lowry said.
“There was a lot of holes where both of us had chances. Yeah, we went out and we did what we had to do.
“Look, we knew we were going to have to go out and shoot a really low score today. There’s not much wind out there, and the course is fairly gettable, and in four-balls you want to be shooting at least 10-under.
“I was pretty happy to have Rory go out and eagle the last there. It makes dinner taste nicer and kind of puts us in a great position going into tomorrow.”
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Shane Lowry and Rory McIlroy hole an eagle on the second hole of the Zurich Classic of New Orleans for the second consecutive day running
There was the added element for McIlroy that his eagle putt on the 18th came after a 90-minute rain delay due to lightning, the Masters champion admitting he did not give too much thought to what was to come as he waited.
“I think the secret is not thinking about it in those 90 minutes,” McIlroy said.
“We had a bit of lunch and we were watching some highlights from last year and talking about a bunch of — where we’re going to go for dinner tonight. The last thing on my mind during the delay was the putt, and then once I got back out there, I sort of concentrated on it and made sure I did what I needed to do and just a bonus for it to go in.”
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Remarkably, no team has defended their Zurich Classic title but McIlroy and Lowry could be the first to do that if they back up a strong moving day on Sunday.
Watch the Zurich Classic of New Orleans throughout the weekend live on Sky Sports. Coverage continues on Sunday from 3.30pm on Sky Sports Golf. Get Sky Sports or stream with NOW.
