McDowell’s Mountain retreat

Graeme McDowell has returned to Orlando from Malaysia to begin his Masters preparations at a little known private golf course that has remained relatively hidden for 100 years.

McDowell intends spending much of this coming week at the Mountain Lake resort course, located about an hour’s drive south of his palatial Lake Nona home.

It means McDowell will skip this week’s Shell Houston Open where organisers have for the past few years enticed the likes McDowell, Rory McIlroy and Phil Mickelson in setting up the Redstone host course as Augusta-like as it can.