GOLF:Victory at Pebble Beach last year catapulted the Antrim man into the top tier of the game and he is comfortable with his new status, says PHILIP REID
IF A crow, or perhaps a bald eagle, were to fly directly from Pebble Beach links to Congressional Golf Club outside Washington DC, the distance travelled – with no detours or prevarication – would be 2,552 miles, give or take an inch or two. For Graeme McDowell, the odyssey since lifting the famed US Open trophy hard by the Pacific coast a year ago has been considerably longer; an infinite journey, with no set destination. Until now!
G-Mac – it would seem a US Open win entitles the bearer to attain a handle that makes the champion a possession of the people – has, for sure, criss-crossed time zones in his year as a Major title holder. He has travelled; but he has developed too. A multiple winner in 2010, with victories in the USA, Wales and Spain, and a major role in Europe’s Ryder Cup win, the Ulster man’s journey since walking down the 18th fairway at Pebble Beach and whispering a happy father’s day to the TV cameras, has been a rollercoaster ride at breakneck speed with barely time to catch breath.
Now though, McDowell’s first tenure as custodian of a Major trophy is near an end. Next Thursday, he will approach the first tee for the last time as the reigning 2010 US Open champion. It will be time to write a new chapter in his CV, time to start a new journey.
Flashback to Pebble Beach for a moment, to McDowell stepping in from the shadows and embracing the full glare with a grace and humility born of a son of the Causeway Coast; to the time when he became a giant among men and Jay Leno came calling as did the producers of the hit TV show Entourage. Flashback to a weekend where he finished his second round as leader at noon on a Friday and had to wait some 28 hours before teeing it up again, and then flashback to a final round where Dustin Johnson – the 54-hole leader – imploded and McDowell stayed cool, calm and collected and executed the shots that led him to victory.
Memories? He has more than a few. Of wandering aimlessly around a shopping mall on the Saturday morning, just to kill time. Buying an iPad. Drinking coffee.
“It was an incredibly long time to have to be in the lead at the US Open and to think about that . . . Saturday was a big day for me. I was nervous. I was leading the US Open. I just spent the previous 28 hours in control of the golf tournament without hitting a shot but that afternoon was huge, huge for me . . . in a way, Saturday was part of the reason why I felt like I got the job done on Sunday because I came through that experience, handled it pretty well, shot a battling level par which kept me in the golf tournament. And Dustin? I threw the whole leading thing into his hands.”
Ah, the wisdom of hindsight. McDowell didn’t allow Johnson to leapfrog him into the lead, but, as fate would have it, it was the best thing that could have happened.
In the end, it all came down to his play on the 18th hole, a par five that runs along a shoreline with the Pacific’s waves pounding the rocks. All he needed was a par to win, and, in opting with caddie Kenny Comboy to lay-up with his second, McDowell recalled: “We decided to try to give ourselves a hundred yards, which is one of my favourite numbers, a shot that I can hit in my sleep. It’s a little sort of three-quarter gap wedge for me. It was a no-brainer shot in that I really knew what I had to do. I had the gap wedge out of the bag before we even got to the ball.
“I had 97 yards, and I mean, I remember just having that excitement and I just wanted to hit the shot, hit it as quickly as possible; and my technique under pressure is to try and speed up a little bit because it gives the brain a little less time to see negativity. I was like, ‘let me at it, give me the gap wedge, give me the number, let’s go’.
“I actually had a pretty decent third shot but I was a little pumped up and I was a little fizzed up and I fizzed it in there 30 feet over the flag, and I had that two putts that we all dream about to win a Major Championship.”
McDowell has lived for the past year with the moniker of US Open champion – and occasionally Ryder Cup hero – prefixing who and what he is. He has done his utmost to keep his feet on the ground, to remain as the player who left the north Antrim coast as a teenager for the sultry heat of Alabama and who developed into a world-beater.
“Do I conceive the enormity of what I’ve achieved?” he asks himself, before answering in that unusual twang that marries Portrush with Alabama and a hint of Florida. “No, I don’t really. When I read statements like: The first European in 40 years to win the US Open, the first Irishman ever to win the US Open; only the third Irishman to win a Major championship, stuff like that hits me hard. It really helps me grab the reality of what I did, but apart from that, like I say, when you’re on the inside looking out, it doesn’t feel quite as enormous as perhaps it will be when I look back on it in 23 years’ time.”
Now though, McDowell – without a win this season and a couple of recent weekend collapses at Sawgrass and Celtic Manor to occupy his mind – heads into new terrain: defending a Major title at Congressional, starting next Thursday. The journey from Pebble Beach has taken him across every timeline at one point or another and, now, he finally has an endpoint.
If Pebble Beach was, as he puts it himself, “tailor-made for me in many ways,” and his form in practice such that it prompted a run on the bookies from those in the caddyshack, the challenge at Congressional – long and brutish – is different.
“Is it going to be set up for me?” he ponders. “We’ll see. Am I better equipped? I’m certainly no less equipped that’s for sure. I’ve got the confidence now, and I’ve got the belief in myself that if I put myself in position at big events, I have the belief to go on and do it. It doesn’t mean I’m going to do it.
“I didn’t do it at the Players Championship but I’ve got the belief in myself to where if I get in position at a Major championship that I will kick on . . . obviously I’ve got to hand that US Open trophy back which is not going to be very nice. When Thursday comes and goes, it’s going to be great to get that first round under my belt and get off and running and I’ll be going there hoping to compete.
“I think it’s been a great learning experience just to go through the process I’ve gone through (the past year) because I’ll never go through this process again. This will always be my first Major championship. It will always be my defining year, be my sort of rookie year as a top player, if you like, so I’ll never have to go through this process again.
“I feel like I’ve probably experienced nearly everything there is to experience in the game now, so everything beyond here will feel reasonably normal. So I guess this last 12 months has been probably the last feather in my cap, if you like, as far as getting ready to be the best player I can be; accepting everything that goes with winning the best tournaments in the world and being one of the best players in the world.
“I guess I’ve learned that I can handle it.”
KEY HOLES AT CONGRESSIONAL WATER, WATER EVERYWHERE
10th Hole – Par 3, 218 Yards
This short hole – which generally plays a club shorter than its yardage because of its elevated tee – is built on the site of what was the finishing hole at Congressional in the 1997 US Open. However, the hole now plays from the opposite direction.
The bailout area over the green will leave players with a very difficult shot back to the pin, as the putting surface slopes down to the water. There are two bunkers behind and one to the right to add to the difficulty.
18th Hole – Par 4, 523 Yards
One of the great – and toughest – finishing holes in championship golf, this demanding par four requires a tee shot down the right-hand side to take advantage of the downhill right-to-left slope in the fairway. Players will most likely be playing the approach shot over water off a sidehill lie to a peninsula green which runs from right to left.
The green is bisected by a ridge, making it imperative to find the correct tier where the flag is positioned; otherwise, it will be a real challenge to make a two-putt.
Philip Reid
