McDowell takes advantage of late invite

Graeme McDowell made good use of his sponsors’ invitation at the St Jude Classic last night to claim a place on the leaderboard heading into today’s second round in Memphis.

McDowell had intended to play the Austrian Open this week before that tournament was moved to September and instead chose to play in the States as he prepares for next week’s US Open at Bethpage, New York.

His decision paid off as McDowell shot an opening four-under-par 66 at TPC Southwind to take a share of third place, two strokes behind overnight leader Brian Gay.

“It was nice to go out there and make a few putts and post a good number,” McDowell said.

“I figure it’s good preparation for next week for the fitness levels and concentration levels in general.

“I was hoping to play in Austria this week and Europe and kind of switched that event. They were struggling for a sponsor and lost their slot and stuff.

“Bit of a last minute request to come here and really, really happy that the sponsors and the tournament director decided to give me an invite here.

“I’m really happy to have the chance to prepare and really, really happy when I saw the golf course. I thought it was beautifully set up and it‘s certainly an interesting part of the world. It’s nice.”

McDowell also declared himself free of the shin splints problem in his right leg he experienced last month while back playing on the European Tour which forced him to withdraw from the Irish Open the day after shooting a second-round 61 at Baltray.

“It progressively got worse and worse and worse, to the point where I ended up withdrawing on the Saturday of the Irish Open,” he added.

“I came off the Pro-Am on a Wednesday the following week in really bad shape, and the European Tour doctor told me not the play the next day. He was kind of worried about stress fractures and all kinds of things.

“I had an MRI on the Thursday afternoon at Wentworth and it turned out to be a second degree tear of my lower right anterior tibialis. It was a pretty bad tear, one that we had to be pretty careful of for a couple weeks.

“I have to say my recovery has been really good. It’s the first week I’ve felt fit since. I kind of limped around the European Open a little bit and had a nice week off last week just resting.

“I feel great this week.”