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It would be tempting to believe Graeme McDowell is contemplating early retirement from the game after 12 months of hell. But when he said on the eve of the Dubai Duty Free Irish Open at Mount Juliet Estate that he wasn’t “ready to walk away,” he was quick to point out that he wasn’t ready to walk away “this way.”
“This way,” for those who haven’t been paying attention to the career trajectory of the 2010 US Open champion, means silently fading into the sunset in a hail of missed cuts.
McDowell started 2020 with a flourish when he won the Saudi International to move back into the world’s top 50 and dared to dream of a fifth Ryder Cup appearance at Whistling Straits. Then the coronavirus pandemic struck. The 41-year-old Portrush player has been a different man ever since.
No sooner did he get back on the course – 15 pounds lighter after hard graft in the gym during the lockdown – than “things started going sideways.” Longtime caddie Ken Comboy contracted COVID-19, and the man known as “G-Mac” had missed 19 of 28 cuts before he arrived in County Kilkenny last week.
“Then you start scrambling; you start searching, looking, trying and grinding,” he explained.
Ranked 167th in the world heading to the Irish Open, he’s spent the past two months re-setting and reflecting, and realised he needs to get back to what made him a major winner and former world No 4 in the first place.
“It’s different from what it looked like 10 years ago, and just making sure that I do a better job and give myself the ability to go on the golf course, relax, enjoy, the old cliché, get out of my own way.”
GRAEME McDOWELL
In an era where long hitters hold sway, it would not be unfair to say McDowell has not been himself for the past seven years. Yes, he’s won three times – the OHL Classic at Mayakoba in 2015, the Corales Puntacana Resort & Club Championship in 2019 and last year’s Saudi International – but admits those wins have been deceptive.
“I’ve sprinkled a few wins into a pretty sort of barren period that maybe kind of polished things up and maybe made me look like I was playing better than I was,” he explained.
A quick look at his statistics makes grim reading for McDowell fans. Once one of the world’s best putters, he’s ranked 150th of 160 on the PGA Tour for strokes gained putting, 199th for strokes gained off the tee and 171st in strokes gained around the green. In other words, even his strengths are letting him down and that makes the PGA Tour a particularly unforgiving place.
“My confidence is low. My expectation levels are high, so I’m really trying to adjust that,” he said. “At this point, I really should be out here playing golf tournaments, enjoying myself. Everything else is gravy from here. If I wasn’t to hit another shot here, it’s been a great run. It’s been a great career.
“But I’m not ready to walk away. I’ve got things that I want to achieve, and it’s about kind of just refocusing on what does success look like for me now. It’s different from what it looked like 10 years ago, and just making sure that I do a better job and give myself the ability to go on the golf course, relax, enjoy, the old cliché, get out of my own way.
“That’s kind of where I’m at right now. The game is probably closer than it looks on paper. Just not really putting numbers on the board, but I don’t really feel like I’m miles away.”
He feels the solution is simple.
“I feel one of the mistakes I made the last 12 months is searching too deeply and trying to do things differently rather than focusing on the things that made me great to this point and trying to get better at those again – my putting, keeping the ball in play, my wedge play and things like that,” he said.
Tipped to likely be European Ryder Cup captain at Ireland’s Adare Manor in 2027, he’s one of Pádraig Harrington’s vice-captains this year, but the realisation he wasn’t cut out to make the team on merit this year was painful.
“As I sit here, obviously I’m very honoured to be one of Pádraig's vice-captains,” he said. “I wanted to be on the team. But the way I played the last 12 months, I know that I’m not good enough to be on that team this year right now.”
McDowell saw some green shoots in the Irish Open, carding a second-round, bogey-free 67 to make just his fourth cut this year. Perhaps the visit home will put a spring in his step for this week’s Abrdn Scottish Open, where there are three spots in the Open up for grabs.
“If you look at my confidence glass, it’s been in the dishwasher, and it’s dry,” he said. “I need to start filling it up with some confidence and give myself that sort of belief in myself again a little bit.”
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