McDowell finally finds that bit of magic

US TOUR PLAYERS CHAMPIONSHIP:SOMETIMES, YOU'VE just got to step out of the shadows. In a season where, until now, his putter had stubbornly stayed cold, Graeme McDowell – who had sought inspiration from his friend Rory McIlroy's maiden win on the US Tour – finally found a hot putter and some magic with his short game to fire a second-round 65 for a midway total of 137, seven under, in the Players Championship at Sawgrass.

On another day of generally low scoring, Europe’s number one Lee Westwood – who has finished third (British Open), third (US PGA) and second (US Masters) in his last three majors – assumed the clubhouse lead after adding a 65 to his opening 67, for 132.

But it proved a frustrating and disappointing event for McIlroy and Pádraig Harrington who both missed the cut.

Harrington, in fact, had the ignominy of getting a ball stuck up a tree on the sixth – his 15th – which led to a double-bogey en route to a second round 72.

McIlroy, who won at Quail Hollow last Sunday two days before his 21st, failed to replicate that sensational form and fell back down to earth.

McIlroy’s scores were a mirror image of Harrington’s, and led to an early trip home before he resumes tournament action at the European Tour’s flagship event, the PGA at Wentworth, in a fortnight.

McIlroy, who missed the Players cut for a second straight year, remarked: “To me anyway, it doesn’t really fit my eye very well.”

McDowell, though, was inspired as he produced a round of eight birdies and a lone bogey, on the 15th, where he pulled his drive into a fairway bunker. But he found birdies at the second, sixth, seventh, ninth, 12th, 13th, 16th and 17th.

After a relatively poor start to his season, McDowell – who plans to play 15 of the next 18 weeks in his bid to make Europe’s Ryder Cup team for Celtic Manor in October – came to life, helped in no small way by a 30-footer for birdie on the sixth and a chip-in birdie from 10 yards on the 12th.

Tiger Woods, the world number one playing just his third tournament of the season, didn’t fare so well on the 13th, where he ran up a double bogey after a tee-shot so wild it finished in the pond by the 12th hole.

But he did manage to include five birdies on his scorecard, eventually signing for a 71, that left him on 141 and – a week after missing the cut at Quail Hollow, just the sixth time that has happened in his career – safely into the weekend’s draw.

“I just seemed to be outside that range where there were more lag putts than putts I could take a run at,” claimed Woods, putting the onus on improved iron play if he were to make any charge over the final two rounds.

“When you’re this far back (nine behind Westwood), it’s still a process. It’s about competing and playing, which is something I’ve done my entire life. . . . . hopefully this course will toughen up a little bit.”

Westwood assumed a one-shot lead over Italian Francesco Molinari and Japan’s Ryuji Imada at the halfway stage as the world number four continued his rich vein of form in big tournaments.

Last season’s European Tour order of merit winner had a recent holiday to Barbados cancelled due to the volcanic eruptions in Iceland, but got over his Masters hangover of finishing second behind Phil Mickelson by going to Quail Hollow instead.

Now, the Englishman has put himself in prime position to win for the first time in 12 years on US soil.

“I’m not doing much wrong. I keep putting myself in contention and came pretty close in four of the last six majors, or something like that. That’s all I’m trying to do, just keep performing like that.”

Westwood’s impressive form over the opening two rounds saw him finish on 132, just two shots outside the tournament’s 36-hole record set by Greg Norman in 1994.