Graeme McDowell’s season has gone from bad to worse after being forced to sit out this week’s Bay Hill Invitational in Florida - the event in which he finished runner-up a year ago.

It leaves the Portrush professional with only next week’s Players Championship to fight his way back into the world’s top 50 and earn a place in the Masters at Augusta a fortnight later.

He currently stands 69th after missing four halfway cuts out of four on the US Tour and going out to Vijay Singh in the first round of the Accenture world match play championship.

McDowell, so keen to be part of the first-ever Ryder Cup on Irish soil in September, scored a closing 66 at Bay Hill last year to finish only two behind winner Kenny Perry and guarantee himself an Augusta debut.

It remains probably the best performance of his career, but he was not a member of the US Tour at the time and although he has since joined the circuit the invitational nature of the Orlando tournament keeps him on the sidelines this week.

The 26-year-old, who after his poor run pulled out of last week’s Honda Classic so he could spend time with coach Claude Harmon, discovered only this weekend that he had not been invited.

Stablemates Darren Clarke and Lee Westwood are part of the line-up, as are Scots Paul Lawrie and Colin Montgomerie, Ian Poulter, Justin Rose, Nick Faldo, Brian Davis and Greg Owen.

Nine of the world’s top 10 are in action, the only absentee being David Toms after his second and third-place finishes the last two weeks. Tiger Woods will be going for a fifth victory in the tournament.