Unhappy comeback for Lowry in Sicily

Damien McGrane in action in Dubai earlier this year - Picture Fran Caffrey/www.golffile.ieGareth Maybin shot 79 and missed the cut in the Sicilian Open. So did Shane Lowry.

“Tough day today!” Lowry told his Twitter followers after missing the cut by seven shots. “Felt a bit lost out there. On the way home to see my coach for a day… gonna work hard and prepare well for next week.”

Lowry’s eight over par effort left him one shot worse off than Maybin. In a strange co-incidence both men have been suffering from injury.

Lowry fractured the scaphoid bone in his right wrist when he slipped on ice as he got out of his car over the Christmas break and only returned to action this week - 119 days after his last European Tour appearance. Maybin “badly” sprained his finger in the gym recently.

They can now rest up for a few days before resuming in next week’s Open de Andalucia alongside the likes of Darren Clarke, Paul McGinley and Michael Hoey, who all skipped this weeks’ inaugural European Tour event in Sicily.

Peter Lawrie (71) and Damien McGrane (73) were the only Irishmen to survive the two over par cut at Donnafugata Golf Resort and Spa but at one over par they are eight strokes adrift of leader Anthony Wall, who is hoping to reap a handsome dividend from spending just 79c on an iPhone app - Dave Stockton’s Putting Instruction.

Wall shot a second round 67 to lead by two strokes on nine under par from Raphael Jacquelin and Richard Green. And he believes his bogey-free effort was all down to the improvement in his putting.

“There are two things here,” said Wall. “The first one is that I asked Tony Johnstone to have a look at my stroke when I was at Sunningdale last week and he gave me a nice lesson and a couple of tips that have really helped me.

“And then I bought a Dave Stockton iphone app about reading greens and that is the best 59 pence I have ever spent because his tips have really simplified a few things for me.

“I have just been looking at the low side of every putt for the last two days – really concentrating on the last third of the putt as opposed to the whole putt and that has definitely helped me. I haven’t holed everything but I have hit my putts a lot better.

“It was a bargain, I have to say – you don’t get many valuable lessons for 59 pence these days! The thing about Dave Stockton is that he is and always was an amazing outer and you tend to listen to those guys a bit more.”