INTERVIEW - GRAEME McDOWELL: Philip Reidhears from the Ryder rookie about learning the lessons and making the changes necessary to the realisation of a lifelong dream
NORMALLY NOT the type of guy to procrastinate, Graeme McDowell kept putting one thing on the long finger: despite everyone telling him he had made the Ryder Cup, from the barman in his local to his peers on the range, the Ulsterman stubbornly refused to be fitted out for the uniform Nick Faldo had selected for next week's match at Valhalla in Kentucky.
Only when the days were shortening and it was a mathematical impossibility for anyone to deny him a place on the team, and when the two wild-card places were - somewhat controversially - filled and his seat on the flight from Heathrow to Louisville next Monday was confirmed, did the player known as "G-Mc" relent; it was then the man who has purposely shed over a stone in weight during the qualifying campaign allowed himself to be fitted like a catwalk model for golf's greatest team competition.
In truth, this is what McDowell has always dreamed of. Ever since he first held a gold club as an eight-year-old, and then started to take the game more seriously when reaching the grand old age of 10, the Ryder Cup - and the majors - replaced boyhood dreams of scoring an FA Cup-winning goal for Manchester United, his other sporting passion.
Golf consumed and brought McDowell from Portrush on Antrim's Causeway coast on an odyssey that made him the best amateur of his era in Ireland and, while on scholarship at the University of Alabama, the finest on the US collegiate circuit, where he broke Tiger Woods's scoring records.
Now 29 years old, McDowell has been playing the game for pay for the past six years, has won four PGA European Tour titles (two of them this season: the Ballantines and the Scottish Open) and earned over €6 million.
And yet, a week where professionals play for nothing but the honour is what indicates to everyone McDowell has truly arrived.
Two years ago, at The K Club, McDowell was by the 16th green as Europe's players surrounded Darren Clarke on the banks of the river Liffey. He wasn't there as a player, though; his role was as a pundit for radio and television, and while his peers cavorted joyously there was a feeling in his stomach at variance with the outer appearance of delight.
In that moment, McDowell vowed silently he would not be an observer when the 2008 match was held at Valhalla.
To that end, he made some serious decisions. Over the next year or so, he decided to change his swing - working with the swing coach Clive Tucker and short-game coach Pete Cowen - and switched caddies to employ Ken Comboy, a fellow Red Devil supporter as it happened, on his bag.
He started to work with the fitness coach Paul Hoskins and brought Dale Richardson, the chiropractor who also works with Pádraig Harrington, onto his team.
Finally, McDowell took the decision to switch agents, moving from the highly successful ISM group to the Dublin-based Horizon, a fledgling sports agency.
They were all hard calls for McDowell, who looks back to the 2006 Ryder Cup and the European Masters two weeks previously as defining moments in changing his career path.
In the tournament in the Swiss Alps, McDowell - who had undertaken a crazy schedule whereby he played 19 tournaments in 21 weeks - had reacted at one point to a bad shot by smashing his five-wood, the favourite club in his bag.
"I'd kind of played my way into oblivion, wasn't enjoying the game," he said. "I was frustrated and pretty beat up. I wasn't liking the person I was on the golf course."
In the two years since, he has been transformed. On Monday, the fruits of his labours will be the flight - with nearest and dearest, family and friends and colleagues - on the charter to Louisville.
And if at times he harks back to Europe's three-in-a-row success in 2006 and his role as media pundit rather than player, it is with a diminishing sense of loss.
"I think maybe I was good enough to get on the last team at The K Club but I didn't handle my schedule as well as I could, and I had a couple of physical issues with a bit of an injury and stuff," he says. "As things have transpired, I think I'm arriving at Valhalla a lot more ready to play the Ryder Cup than I might have been two years ago and I do believe I am good enough.
"I feel like I've served my time, and I am certainly not going to feel like I don't have the tools to do the business. I feel like I'm good enough to be there, and I'm there out of my own good play and I deserve to be there."
McDowell played his way into the team with strong performances throughout the season, winning the inaugural Ballantines championship in Korea in March - his third victory on tour, but first since the 2004 Italian Open - and claiming the Barclays Scottish Open in July.
In the two majors he contested, McDowell played well (but, obviously not as well as the back-to-back winner Harrington) in finishing tied-19th at the British Open and tied-15th at the US PGA. All in all, though, it was a string of performances that moved him into the world's top-30 and brought an automatic place, a maiden appearance, in the Ryder Cup.
"It was exciting to be part of the race," he says. "I put together probably the best form I ever played at the end of June and into July and August, which is the key part of the season. It's the first time I worked out how to do that, and to do it under the Ryder Cup pressure, and to have kept my focus, indicates that I'm learning more and more how to deal with the pressure.
"I've dealt with it well this year. I've focused on playing golf on a given day or a given week and I've given myself the chance to win this season, which is what I set out to do. I've put myself into position a lot, and got two (wins) so far.
"I feel like my technique's improved a lot in the last year, year and a half, and I've been able to put it to good use."
Now, McDowell is getting set to embrace the Ryder Cup and all that it entails: "I've heard Hunter Mahan's comments about being a slave and I've heard it's a tough week but I'm excited and looking forward to everything.
"I'm fully aware it is a mentally tough and draining week and I'll be trying to pace myself for the weekend. I'm okay. As long as you don't see it as being too much of a chore, you'll be fine. After all, you've worked hard to be there so why see it as a chore?
"I've been dreaming of wearing the European uniform all my life, and I've been watching the Ryder Cup for 20 odd years and dreaming of playing in it. I want to enjoy every second of it . . .
"I've always loved the team golf, from growing up and playing Ulster and Irish team golf, playing the Walker Cup. I've always loved the whole idea of sitting in the team room the night before when the pairings come out and discussing tactics and course management, strategies.
"I can't remember what I'm like in the team room but I have my opinions and I'd certainly like to share them with the guys. We have a slightly intimidating captain there, but Nick was one of my heroes and I'm looking forward to seeing what he is going to be like. I'm looking forward to maybe getting a game with Harrington.
"Out of all the guys, he is the one I'd like to tee up with the most. He's going to command a lot of respect from the fans out there, and from the American players.
"There's a similar culture (in Kentucky) to where I went to school in Alabama - not hard-core golf fans and it will certainly be an interesting environment.
"It could be a loud and rowdy and hostile environment but I'm excited about it. It's been a long up-and-down journey for me (to get to the Ryder Cup).
"This game is full of disappointments and I've had to handle some disappointments. I've had plenty of ups as well. But I've enjoyed the ride so far. I set my stall out at The K Club two years ago, I said, 'I'm going to be in this Valhalla team, I'll be there, I'll work hard for it and I'm going to give it one-hundred-and-ten per cent and if I'm not going to make the team it is not going to be from the want of trying this time'. And I think I've done everything right. I rededicated myself.
"I remember being on the 16th green (at The K Club) when they won and they were celebrating and I was happy for them, obviously. But I felt flat. I wanted to know what they felt like, and I could only imagine what it was like.
"I'll never get the chance to play Ryder Cup in Ireland again but if I play four, five or six more Ryder Cups from here, then the K Club will feel a little bit insignificant.
"But it was significant in my career in that I realised I was good enough to be there and I wasn't there and that was a disappointment. I headed home at that point and realised I had to do things differently.
"It's been a two-year process and I've worked harder than I've ever worked in my life, on all the right things - sticking to drills, sticking to routines and working on my scheduling - and made some big decisions, leaving Chubby (Chandler) and switching coaches. I've worked hard in the gym, lost over a stone and still have a long way to go, but I feel better about myself. I'm fitter and injury-free, a lot healthier and feeling better about overall strength and stamina."
Now, McDowell is the type of player ready and able for the demands of the Ryder Cup. Now, is his time.
