The juggler. One eye on the PGA Tour, another on the European Tour. Graeme McDowell, one of those players seeking to placate two masters, calls it “an increasingly difficult balancing act,” of working out an itinerary that enables him to perform to maximum effect on the two circuits.
For sure, there is some crossover. The Majors and the WGCs count towards both tours but, as a European player based in the US, the task of meeting the minimum requirement of 13 tournaments on the PGA European Tour is one that brings its own pressures.
As McDowell put it, “for someone like myself who makes his home in America now, with a wife and young children, it becomes an increasingly difficult balancing act to work out when you jump on a plane to travel all over the world. You never want to go away for just one week. You want to try and put a run of two or three weeks together, and that becomes very difficult to leave the family, you know, when there’s a six or seven million dollar event two hours up the road.”
Scheduling
He added: “You can’t ignore the physicalities in the sport nowadays, and that’s where scheduling is a real art form, making sure that I put myself in as many Wentworths and as many Hilton Heads, as opposed to places like Quail Hollow and golf courses that I feel like maybe I’m two shots behind before I start every day.”
A year ago, McDowell missed out on the BMW PGA Championship as his wife was at a stage in her pregnancy where she could no longer travel. This year, he is back looking for the spark to kick his season into life.
McDowell has managed only one top-10 so far this year – a tied-ninth finish in the Dubai Desert Classic – and his disappointing form is reflected in his positions on the respective order of merits: he is 65th in the Race to Dubai standings, and 135th in the FedEx Cup. Bottom line: there is a heck of a lot of work to do.
“It’s been a slow start of the year,” acknowledged McDowell. “There’s been some technical issues and there’s been some mental issues, mental issues based on great things happening off the golf course and just a rebalancing of my life. I’m not sure which came first, the mental or the technical stuff, but I’ve worked it all out the past few months and I’ve never really felt myself as motivated to get myself back competing on Sunday afternoons and I’m enjoying the process of getting back. When I do get back there, I think I’ll appreciate it more than I ever did.”
McDowell’s career record around the West Course has been disappointing, with a failure to ever break into the top 10. His best finish was tied-13th in 2009, but his last three appearances, in 2011, 2012 and 2013, all ended with missed cuts and an exit on a Friday evening.
“I think the only way that I can change my record around here is to have an open mind. Having not been here last year, I come with a certain amount of freshness. I’m sort of looking at the golf course through a new set of eyes, taking my old yardage books and putting them in the bin and starting again. I’m really starting to re-learn this golf course and understand it and pay attention to things maybe I haven’t seen before.”
Crack the code
McDowell may not have featured on his dozen past appearances in the championship, but there is no doubting his desire to crack the code on a course that has frustrated him in its old and newer guises. “I certainly have a love/hate here. I love coming here. I hate going home on Friday nights. This is an iconic event. I think as a European golfer, you’d love to add your name to this trophy.”
