Shane Lowry hit a shot from the Abu Dhabi Golf Club garbage dump on Wednesday
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Shane Lowry hit a shot from the Abu Dhabi Golf Club garbage dump on Wednesday

A photo of golfer Shane Lowry
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Golfers sometimes find themselves in some places on a golf course, in that purgatory between being in the green grass or glistening sand, or being in a water hazard or out of bounds. There are some places a golfer's ball goes that, frankly, they wish didn't exist.

Shane Lowry found himself in one of those awkward spots in Wednesday's first round of the 2019 Abu Dhabi HSBC Championship on the European Tour. The Irishman, who shot a course-record 10-under 62 to start the tournament, had to hit a shot from what amounted to host Abu Dhabi Golf Club's trash dump.

Playing the fifth hole, Lowry pulled his tee shot so far left, his ball moved near the property line for Abu Dhabi Golf Club. As SB Nation explains, that property line is typically not in play for any golfer on that hole, so club employees and ground staff have felt comfortable over the years using that mostly hidden space as a dumping ground for broken furniture and other things they no longer need. Every golf course has one of these areas, though most golfers never find them. Little did the course staff know a European Tour-winning professional would hit a drive that far left into the land of old benches, hand rails and tires.

But there was Shane Lowry, winner of a World Golf Championships event, hitting from a landfill/storage area for mulch with his second shot into the 468-yard par-4 fifth.

The good news for Lowry is that he made par from the junkyard and, after starting his day on the 10th hole, closed the round out with two more birdies from there to take a three-shot lead into Round 2 at the new Rolex Series event.

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Ryan Ballengee

Ryan Ballengee is founder and editor of Golf News Net. He has been writing and broadcasting about golf for nearly 20 years. Ballengee lives in the Washington, D.C. area with his family. He is a scratch golfer...sometimes.

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