McDowell: Focus now switches to US Open

GRAEME McDOWELL’S early exit from the Masters on Friday has not dented his optimism for the defence of his US Open title at Congressional Country Club in two months.

McDowell, who stuck around on Saturday to watch Rory McIlroy’s third round, failed to figure out the Augusta National greens over two rounds and missed the cut for the second year in a row after rounds of 74 and 73 left him three over par, two shots off what was needed to play the weekend.

The 31-year-old came 99th and last in the field for both total putts and the number of three putts, averaging 1.94 per hole for his 70 putts over 36 holes.

Yet despite the Portrush golfer being set to slip back from his world number five ranking this morning as a consequence of McIlroy’s heroics, he was otherwise extremely happy with his game as his thoughts turned to repeating his Pebble Beach glory in Washington DC in June.

McDowell found 29 of 36 greens in regulation, an 80.56 percentage rate that tied him with halfway leader McIlroy for third place in the field after 36 holes, while he was tied for 16th in fairways hit, finding 22 of 28 for a 78.57 per cent strike rate.

“I hit the golf ball as well as I have for years out there (on Friday) but I just didn’t have it on the greens,” McDowell said. “These greens are some of the trickiest greens you face all year and I just couldn’t get any momentum going, couldn’t get the feel for the pace.

“My ball striking is back and that has been the part which has been eluding me for the past couple of months and I have worked hard on that in the past couple of weeks.

“I desperately wanted to play another two rounds here on the weekend just to get 36 holes more under my belt because I have really enjoyed playing this golf course over the past two days. It’s been a lot of fun.”

McDowell, who had been playing with Tiger Woods and Robert Allenby, admitted he had been unable to recover from his opening round of 74 and had been caught out in his second round with some bad luck on the 12th, which he triple-bogeyed for a six.

“The damage was done on Thursday to be honest,” he said. I just got nothing going (today). My pace was awful and I couldn’t get a putt to the hole up the hill and was very clumsy down the hill. But 12 was just the killer blow for me. I felt like I hit a decent shot in there with the exact flight I was looking for, a decent hold-up seven iron. We didn’t see the ball down and we figured it was just over the back but we went up there and it was just left of the bunker, plugged in the pine straw and gone forever.

“We couldn’t find it so I had to go back to the tee and made another great swing and made bogey off the second ball. So it was a real maximum penalty off what was a pretty decent shot.

“I then eagled 13 to get myself back in it but a clumsy three putt on 15 and then I went pin-hunting on the 17th because I knew I needed a birdie. The way I putted at Bay Hill and the way I putted here were probably my two worst putting tournaments in many years.”