McDowell can’t geta grip on Augusta

Graeme McDowell was trying hard to focus on the positives as he left Augusta National for the 135-mile drive south to Hilton Head Island.

This week’s RBC Heritage tournament moves the PGA Tour on to South Carolina where McDowell will defend the title he won a year ago at the Harbour Links to break a two-and-a-half year victory drought stretching back to his breakout year of 2010. What is more, it kick-started a seven-event streak that also brought wins at the Volvo World Match Play Championship and Alstom Open de France.

Yet the dejection was understandable at the weekend having missed the Masters cut for a second consecutive year, his fifth MC in seven appearances at Augusta National on a course he reveres but cannot come to terms with.

“It’s disappointing as there will be no green jackets in my wardrobe anytime in the near future and I’ve got some work to do if I am going to win around this place,” McDowell said following a six-over-par second-round 78 that left him two shots the wrong side of the cut line.

“But it’s all good and where else would you want to be in the golfing world this week, and while very disappointed, I am very fortunate to be here and while it hurts right now, I will be all right.”

Just 24 hours earlier on Thursday evening, McDowell had been in a very positive mood following a level-par 72 that had eliminated memories of his 2013 rounds of 73 and 76. His only concern had been his failure to make hay with his putter on the four par-five holes at 2, 8, 13 and 15, playing them in one under par on a day when the tournament had laid down a marker with some tough opening-round pin positions.

“I think we are in for a firm, fast weekend,” a chipper McDowell had said on Thursday. “I think it’s going to be a lot of fun; the tougher, the better, I hope, for me. Had a good time this morning. Enjoyed it.”

On Friday, however, it was not the par-fives, which he negotiated in two under par, but the par-fours that proved his downfall, wiping the smile off McDowell’s face from the first hole as he carded a double bogey. A bogey had followed at the seventh but it was the bogey-double bogey start to his inward nine that ruined his chances of making the weekend for only the third time since his debut here in 2005, his tie for 12th place in 2012 remaining the former US Open champion’s best effort at Augusta National.

“You put everything into the first major championship but after doubling the first I walked off there feeling how I don’t want to feel on this golf course, and that is uncomfortable,” he said.

“I had managed to control myself and stay comfortable all day on Thursday and it only took me about two or three shots today to get me out of my comfort zone.

“So I am bitterly disappointed and this is a tough test for me when I am not putting well as I just threw too many shots away around the greens these last two days with a putter in my hand. That’s just not good enough and it’s déjà vu standing here saying the same again now.”