‘Wild’ ace helps Shane Lowry stay in Masters contention with slice of history

Hole-in-one specialist Shane Lowry hailed his “wild” ace at the Masters which helped put him in contention heading into the final day.

The Irishman has quite the collection of ones on his CV and this was his second at Augusta National, becoming the first player to have that honour.

Lowry’s tee shot at the 190-yard sixth saw him jump from six to eight under and he finished nine under after a 69, just two off the lead.

“That’s wild, isn’t it?  I made one a couple of weeks ago in Houston. You don’t ever expect to make a hole-in-one, I just couldn’t believe it,” said the former Open champion, whose previous hole-in-one here came at the 16th in the final round of 2016.

“Obviously you’re out there and you’re in the hunt at the Masters and you’re making hole-in-one, it’s pretty cool.

“The walk down the sixth hole with everyone around 16 and the sixth was very special. I’ll remember that for a while. It was obviously amazing.

“It gives you obviously a huge kind of boost. You go from six-under to eight-under and then all of a sudden you’re only four back.

“It’s getting real now. I felt like I did a great job of calming myself down afterwards.”

Lowry has also aced the 17th at Sawgrass, in 2022, and the seventh at Pebble Beach, in January 2025, two of the most famous par threes in golf.