McDowell forced to sit out Bay Hill Invitational

GRAEME McDOWELL'S season has gone from bad to worse after being forced to sit out this week's Bay Hill Invitational in Florida, in which he finished runner-up a year ago.

It leaves the Northern Ireland golfer 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 matchplay championship.

McDowell, so keen to be part of the first 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.