Cup spot on the line for McDowell

Graeme McDowell sees the last two months of the Ryder Cup race in very simple terms: “I know I’ve got to perform,” he says.

It is probably a good thing he is not looking at the points table at the moment because on Sunday he fell out of a top-10 place.

But if he can finish the European Open at The London Club in Kent like he started it yesterday, the standings will soon make much happier reading for the 28-year-old Northern Irishman.

After a seven-under-par 65, McDowell resumed today joint second with 48-year-old South African David Frost, just two behind England’s Ross Fisher, whose 10-birdie 63 broke the course record and was also his lowest Tour round by one.

Fisher, chasing his second title, was among the later starters in the second round, giving McDowell the chance to lay the gauntlet down this time.

“I’m trying to take the emphasis off the Ryder Cup,” he said. “I’m just focusing day by day and not looking beyond Sunday of the European Open right now.

“All I can do is stay in the present and try to play my own game. If I get picked, I get picked; if I don’t, I don’t.

“I’m still having a great year and going in the right direction. The race is really only just beginning now we’re in the meat and bones of the season.

“Scheduling is tough for every player, but I feel mentally and physically fresh and I’m probably not spending too much time on the range.

“I’m trying to get as much rest and relaxation as possible – and stay off the Guinness on weeks off.”

Fisher is himself 21st in the cup race, but the £400,000 (€505,000) first prize this weekend could lift him above McDowell and into 10th spot.

The remarkable thing about his course record was that he considered not playing this week after a tough run of events, which included 36 holes of Open qualifying on Monday, and had not seen the layout until he teed off.

Fisher, who finished third at Sunningdale, stated: “I was feeling pretty tired, but how do you pull out of an event when you live only 40 minutes away?

“It’s pretty difficult to sit at home and watch it on TV, knowing that you are playing well. So I thought: ’Let’s see how we go, have a few days off and if I feel fine, I’ll play’.”

Fisher took his wife Joanne to Wimbledon for her birthday on Tuesday, left his caddie to walk the Kent course and then attacked it ’blind’.

This is the first week of golf’s new drug-testing era and six players – their identities were not revealed – were chosen at random yesterday to give a urine sample.