McDowell at home in thinker’s paradise

Joining your school’s chess club just to meet good-looking girls hints at a certain degree of strategic acumen and Graeme McDowell is enough of a tactician to also admit he is relishing the challenges Royal Lytham & St Annes will pose as he plots a route to British Open success.

The 2010 US Open champion has come out of the doldrums that hit him in the wake of that stellar year, that also brought a Ryder Cup-winning putt for Europe, and his runner-up finish behind Webb Simpson at Olympic in last month’s US Open has given McDowell the confidence to believe he is back in business as a Major contender.

Ally those positive thoughts to the way Royal Lytham fits McDowell’s eye and there is the firm belief that the Irishman is ready at last to compete for a Claret Jug.

“This is right up there as my favourite,” McDowell said yesterday following a practice round with fellow Portrush residents Alan Dunbar and Darren Clarke. “Compare this to St Andrews which doesn’t really set up that well for me because guys can blow it over trouble. Get the driver out, hit it as hard as you can and miss the trouble left.

“It is not like that here. It tests you with every yardage. You have to thread four irons and two irons. You have got to carry three woods over the tops of traps and stop it short of the next, thread drivers. Positional play off the tee, I hate using the word plodders, but it is a chess game. You’ve got to position your first shot to have a chance with your second.”

The chess career of the teenage McDowell was governed by the “thought there might be a few decent girls in the chess club” but he added: “I do enjoy the chess side of golf and this might be my favourite Open venue so far. I might say something different come Friday night but hopefully I’ll be reinforcing that comment on Sunday night.

“It’s a positional golf course in that you have to thread the ball off the tee, drivers, two-irons, three-woods, four-irons — all types of clubs off the tees. Sets of bunkers at 240, 280, 320 [yards] on every hole, meaning that even the bomber can’t take all the trouble out of play. You have to take the trouble on in some shape or form at all times.

“If you can get the ball in the fairway you can play this golf course. If you start missing fairways you cannot play this golf course and that’s what I like about it.”

Much of this positivity comes not just from Lytham’s set-up but McDowell’s near miss in San Francisco, when he finished a shot behind Simpson in a tie for second with Michael Thompson.

“I took a lot of confidence from Olympic,” he said. “It fuelled my fire to get back in contention at the Majors. There’s no doubt, careers are defined by the Major championships and they are the toughest tests and the ones you want to try and put yourself in contention for.

“What are my expectations this week? I’d love to have a shot on Sunday, love to be within four or five of the lead on Sunday. That’s what I’m trying to do.

“You have got to keep your expectation levels in check because take last year I was waxing lyrical about what I was going to do. I was playing beautiful. And within three holes on Thursday my head was off. You have to stay patient and realise it doesn’t matter how good you feel going into Thursday, you have to try and react as well as you can to anything this course is going throw at you.

“It is going to throw the elements at you. You’re going to hit it in some bunkers. You’re going to hit it in the rough every now and again. And you have just got to try and keep the attitude right.”