The embroidered name on the golf bag is slightly awry in that the "a" and "e" are transposed. Given the bag's origins in the United States - with BLAZERS, the team name of the University of Alabama, unmistakably prominent beside his own misspelt name - such a minor error with the unfamiliar (to them) spelling of Graeme may be excused.
Increasingly, however, there is a suspicion that his is a name that most observers will remember. In many ways, the college motto is an appropriate one because, over the summer months, Graeme McDowell has blazed his way through one tournament after another.
The roll of honour includes the Irish Close, Irish Youths', Leinster Youths' and the World Universities Individual titles, as well as a call-up to the Britain and Ireland team for the Palmer Cup in two weeks. Yesterday, in conditions which he described as "a long shot from Alabama", with a stiff wind and intermittent heavy rain forcing competitors to manufacture shots, McDowell moved into the semi-finals stage of the South of Ireland amateur championship, sponsored by Irish Shell.
In this morning's penultimate phase, McDowell, who turned 21 last Sunday, is scheduled to meet 23-year-old Tim Rice, a recent business graduate of the University of Toledo, while the other semi-final features more experienced campaigners in Adrian Morrow, a two-time winner, and Ken Kearney.
There was a touch of the pupil overcoming the master in McDowell's successful conquest - by 4 and 3 - of Garth McGimpsey in the quarter-final yesterday. Growing up alongside the Portrush links, a course where McGimpsey won five North of Ireland titles, McDowell couldn't but be influenced and he confessed: "Garth is someone I've always looked up to. In fact, I idolised him, and to get the chance to play him, and beat him, means so much."
In more recent times, McGimpsey was "an inspirational captain" to an Ulster youths' team that featured a younger, less mature McDowell.
McDowell jumped into an early lead in his match with McGimpsey, going two up after three holes. By the turn, he was three up and "feeling pretty comfortable with myself," and then he moved four-up by taking the 10th.
The remaining holes were halved and McDowell moved into a semi-final meeting with another player who has used the American system to his advantage. It ended, for another year at least, McGimpsey's quest to add the only provincial championship that has evaded him.
Exactly 32 years ago to the day, Tim Rice's father, Billy, contested the semi-final stage of the South. So Rice the junior has at least emulated that feat. Yesterday, he was an impressive 5 and 4 winner on the double: in his fifth round match with Kieran McCarthy and, later, in the quarter-final with Athlone's Colm Moriarty.
Rice confessed that his encounter with Moriarty was "a yo-yo type one" in the early stages. Two up after three, he founded himself one down after six by losing three successive holes. However, Rice levelled matters on the seventh, resumed the lead at the eighth and never looked back. There was considerably more tension in Morrow's route into the semi-finals for a second successive year. A winner in 1983 and again in 1996, Morrow had to show tremendous fortitude to win both his matches in extra-time, first against Maurice Kelly at the 20th and, then, against Noel Fox at the 19th.
One down playing the 18th in his match with his Portmarnock clubmate Fox, Morrow rolled in a 30-footer for birdie to force sudden-death and then closed out matters at the first tie hole.
There were no such histrionics from Kearney, however, who was five up at the turn in his quarter-final clash with youths international Justin Kehoe. Although Kehoe produced a fightback by reeling off three holes from the 10th to reduce the deficit, Kearney stemmed the tide by claiming the 13th and eventually recorded a 3 and 2 win.
