Somewhere along the way this season, Graeme McDowell came to a fork in the road. It was just his luck he took the wrong route. "I've got off the beaten track a little this year," said McDowell, ahead of the season-ending Volvo Masters, which, as it happens, with its limited field and massive prize fund, offers a gilt-edged chance to discover deliverance from what has been a miserable campaign.
McDowell has fallen to 115th in the world from 55th at the start of the year. The almost constant downward spiral hit the confidence of a player who set out at the start of the season in the genuine belief he could be part of Europe's team for the Ryder Cup. That had been his big goal for 2006. Instead, his role at The K Club was as a radio and television analyst.
"I was standing around watching them celebrate and I had a little bit of a flat feeling inside and I knew why: I wanted to have what they had, I wanted to be there, like them, that's for damned sure."
At one point last weekend, typical of the run of poor fortune that had afflicted him, McDowell - playing in a tournament in Asia - even had cause to wonder if his place in the elite field for Valderrama was still secure.
McDowell had been a seemingly comfortable 54th on the European Tour money list ahead of last week's Mallorca Classic, the penultimate event of the season. Rather than play in the Balearic Islands, the Ulsterman headed off to a tournament in New Delhi in India - where he missed the cut, the 13th time in 27 tournaments worldwide this season he failed to survive into the weekend - believing his place in the Volvo Masters was totally safe.
As it transpired, he dropped to 59th and only one other player, Simon Wakefield, finished behind him in qualifying for the field here.
"I'm the second-last man in, but I certainly don't feel that way. I feel like I can certainly contend this week, there's no doubt about that. I just need to string a few rounds together, to get myself up and going and to get a little bit of confidence back. This is a course that suits me reasonably well. I've got good placement off the tee and I'm not a bad scrambler.
"I'm looking forward to it," said McDowell. "I want to go with the flow this week."
McDowell, who has had only two top-10 finishes this season, the high point being his fourth-place finish in the Deutsche Bank TPC of Europe, intends to concentrate mainly on playing in Europe next season, rather than attempting to seriously mix the European Tour with the PGA Tour.
"I might take a couple of invites in America next year but 95 per cent of my time will be spent on the European Tour.
"I've been very disappointed with my season. I'd compare it to 2003," said McDowell of a year when he finished 96th in the Order of Merit and failed to make the Volvo Masters field.
He added: "But I'm a more experienced player now and I expect a lot more of myself than I did then. I'm certainly going to use this winter to clear my head, to get a bit of direction back. I want to find out where I'm going and how I'm going to get there.
"My ambition is to concentrate on Europe for the next two years, to get myself into the Ryder Cup the next time round (in Valhalla, Kentucky, in 2008), and, basically, to get myself back into the world's top 50.
"I want to start winning golf tournaments again and I want to recommit myself in every direction: my swing, my motivation, my goal-setting, everything. I think I need to get this season over me before I start to spring clean."
McDowell's winter will involve spending time between Orlando in Florida and Portrush as he seeks to re-energise his game. Before then, though, there is the little matter of the European Tour's finale.
McDowell would like nothing better if the next four days at Valderrama showed that the prognosis on his game isn't quite so poorly as his recent results would indicate.
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