McDowell feels the frustration

GRAEME MCDOWELL will go back to the drawing board in the wake of his PGA Championship missed cut as he bids to salvage something from a season of frustration.

The 2010 US Open champion missed his third halfway cut out of four in the majors this season after posting an eight-over-par second-round 78 at Atlanta Athletic Club.

That took McDowell to 12 over par for the week, way off the cut mark after an errant day off the tee and a lost battle with the Highland Course’s bunkers.

“I drove the ball horrendously again today,” McDowell said. “I have had the rights off the tee since the Irish Open.

“Everything is under, everything is high and right. And these bunkers are just unplayable. The ball is semi-plugged in every bunker you go into. My fairway bunker play wouldn’t be my strength at the best of times but out of these traps, they are just unplayable. I just can’t score.

“You have to drive the ball well here to have a chance and I didn’t do that so you are behind the eight-ball. I went chasing a little bit those last nine holes trying to fire at some pins and made a couple of numbers.

“It’s disappointing. The game is just not there. It is still a work in progress. The game is just kicking the sh*t out of me right now but you kick on.”

McDowell now has two weeks off to try and get his game in order before he returns to competition at the first event of the PGA Tour’s FedEx Cup play-off series, The Barclays in New Jersey, starting August 25.

“I’ve just got to go back to the drawing board a little bit and see what is going on. I have worked hard on my head this week and got that right but my technique just wasn’t there so it’s frustrating but sh*t happens. I have just got to keep plugging.

“It drains me in the moment, there’s no doubt it drains me. But this is a long career with peaks and troughs and I will have as many peaks and troughs as the best of them and we all go through this. I have got to stay patient and stay in it and keep working hard and there will be light at the end of the tunnel soon. But there wasn’t any light this week.”