Shane Lowry summed up his US Open experience as a "weird" couple of days after missing the cut by a wide margin at a punishing Oakmont course.
An opening 79 on Thursday had left the Offaly man with a huge salvage job on his hands at the year's third major and it didn't get much better on Friday when he carded a 78 that left him tied for 134th on 17 over and heading home early.
Lowry told RTÉ Sport's Greg Allen that very little went his way across the two rounds in Pennsylvania despite some aspects of his play being satisfactory.
"I drove it in play a lot (on Thursday), did what I was supposed to do off the tee and then just didn't have the game that I've had for the last while, and then really struggled on the greens and the round got away from me here and that was it," he said.
"I sort of let it do what I said I wouldn't do. But that's Oakmont, that's the US Open and I just made too many doubles, too many big mistakes and then when I got a couple of chances, I didn't convert them and I didn't really do much right, other than I drove the ball as good as I've probably driven the ball in a long time. So a weird kind of couple of days."
More frustratingly, it's come in a season when he's been largely on his game on the results front.
"I felt great coming in here," he said.
"It's been a strange sort of year where I've been having some great results but very rarely feel very satisfied with myself and this week is back to the drawing board after this week.
"But with scores like that, you can look a million miles away out there. But I feel like I was good in a lot of parts today, just obviously got a horrendous start and what happened at the second was just... problem is I tried a wedge in there to spin it off the green and I've 40 yards for my third shot. It's just hard.
"Maybe I should have been more aggressive off the tee but what happened, happened. It's just hard. You see three people are under par. The best players in the world are here and it's just hard."
However, Lowry was able to have a chuckle at his own expense for the very basic error he made on the 14th green by picking up his ball without marking it first, incurring a one-stroke penalty.
"Probably one of the stupidest things I've ever done," he quipped.
"I picked the ball up, had the ball in my hand, turned around to Darren (Reynolds, caddie) and he basically said to me, 'What are you doing?' And yeah, I put it back down, marked it and played on and I knew I was going to get penalised. I didn't know whether it was going to be one or two. But by then, maybe my mind was somewhere else."
Next up for Lowry is the Travelers Championship in Connecticut, before a very welcome three-week stretch back home in Ireland.
"I've been away from my wife and kids now for a few weeks and it's another week next week so I'm looking forward to getting home and getting back to Ireland and seeing all my friends and family."
