The children bodysurfed to their hearts’ content down the grassy dunes, squeals of delight accompanying their thrill rides. Yet, the happiest head of all belonged to Shane Lowry, his broad smile evidence that poker isn’t his thing. He couldn’t hide his delight if his life depended on it.

And rightly so. A brilliant second-round 62, a course record, moved the Offaly man to an 11-under-par 129 at the midpoint of the Amgen Irish Open, three shots clear of China’s Haotong Li and Danish duo Jacon Skov Olesen and Niklas Norgaard.

He even got to meet the GAA lads afterwards, as Mayo’s All-Ireland winning footballers Ryan O’Donoghue and Aidan O’Shea waited with his coach Neil Manchip outside the recorders to shoot the breeze. Lowry’s sort of day, to be sure.

Lowry surfed through the fairways between the sandhills at Trump International with a mesmerising display of golf. His round was in some ways reminiscent of how he took control of the 2019 Open en route to lifting the Claret Jug at Royal Portrush.

Lowry has a magnetic pull when his putter behaves like a magic wand. And here, it did. The large galleries flocked to witness some wonderful golf which had him contemplating the possibly of a sub-60 round. Still, a front nine of 30 combined with a back-nine 32, propelling him to the top of the leader board.

Lowry was the star performer, and the crowds reacted with acclamation. He felt their love.

“It’ll be up to me to try and keep myself up there and give myself a chance on Sunday afternoon and, if I’m up there on Sunday afternoon, I know there’s a crowd that’ll be behind me and they’ll be that 15th club in the bag hopefully rolling me home,” said Lowry.

“The crowd’s support does a lot for my confidence because I put a lot of pressure on myself in weeks like this. I want to come out here and perform, and I feel very happy, very proud of myself the way I did that the last two days.

“But golf tournaments are 72 holes, as I’ve found out a few times this year, and it’s up to me now to kick on the rest of the weekend and give it a good run.”

Having suffered late slips ups at the Dubai Invitational and the Cognizant Classic earlier this season, Lowry has rolled up to Doonbeg a re-energised player. Time off since playing the St Jude Championship and missing out on the two final tournaments of the FedEx Cup playoffs has clearly recharged his batteries.

“It’s one of the better rounds of golf that I’ve ever played. I feel like I’m in a good place. Through everything this year, I feel like I’ve stayed as positive as I could. I’m ready to just kick on now. I’ve got a huge 12 months ahead of me with a lot of stuff coming up and this will be a great start to it,” Lowry added.

He may not have won on tour since teaming up with Rory McIlroy to win the 2024 New Orleans Classic, but he showed his big-time temperament with his heroics at last year’s Ryder Cup.

McIlroy gave Lowry his vote of confidence heading into the weekend. “He believes he’s a good player in windy links conditions, so I think that’s half the battle, believing that you are or knowing that you are,” last year’s Irish Open champion said.

“I think he feels like he has an advantage when the conditions are like that, and that’s the way he sees the game, he sees the game with that flight. He doesn’t really hit the ball up in the air that often, he usually flights it a lot, even when it’s in calmer conditions.

“So I just think that this type of golf suits the way he likes to see the game and then I think it gives him that little bit of extra belief that he can handle it better than most.”

Lowry leads a quartet of home hopes who survived Friday’s cut – joined by McIlroy, Tom McKibbin, and Liam Nolan – and will now look to battle the elements, with heavy rain and strong winds predicted for the third round. If he can successfully negotiate that, then Sunday will be about closing the deal under the watchful gaze of US president Donald Trump.