McDowell to play the US Tour but Westwood stays in Europe

GOLF: GRAEME McDOWELL has confirmed his intention to rejoin the PGA Tour next year. The Ryder Cup hero, not to mention US Open champion, announced his intention ahead of this week's Alfred Dunhill Links Championship.

The 31-year-old, who has a house in Lake Nona in Florida, played in 10 PGA Tour events last year and will officially take up his card and compete in the money-spinning FedEx Cup next season.

McDowell, who secured the match-winning point for Europe at the Celtic Manor on Monday, does not intend to turn his back on the European Tour but will definitely play more tournaments on the other side of the Atlantic in the first half of next year.

“There’s definitely going to be more of an American influence to my schedule for the first six months,” McDowell explained. “I want to give it a go next year because it’s a non-Ryder Cup year and I would like to try to make the FedEx play-offs. I’ll maybe not be quite as US-based as Luke Donald, Ian Poulter or Justin Rose, maybe like a Harrington-type schedule.”

The Portrush golfer previously played on the US circuit after earning his card in 2006 but a string of disappointing performances led him to shift his focus back to European shores.

Six missed cuts in his first seven tournaments wasn’t quite how he had planned life in the big leagues and he is keen to put matters to rights. “I had a card in 2006 but got injured early in that season and now I want to give it a real try,” he added.

His Celtic Manor partner Rory McIlroy, who joined the American circuit this season and won in May, says he will continue to play both tours, but intends to play fewer events.

“I’m going to look to play 25 events or less next year, definitely,” said the 21-year-old, who with six more to come this season will have played 28 in 2010. Which ones go remains to be seen.

Now a complete convert to the Ryder Cup after calling it “just an exhibition” last year, McIlroy filmed some of the post-match party to add to his memories.

And he joked that he thought Tiger Woods and Phil Mickelson “combine better as a table tennis team than golfers!”

Lee Westwood starts his bid for the world number one spot in Scotland today after making one of the biggest decisions of his career – unlike McDowell, he will not be joining the US Tour next year.

A week that began with him becoming a Ryder Cup winner for the fifth time in seven matches will end with him deposing Woods if he can finish first or second at the Dunhill Links Championship.

But, whether he achieves that goal or not in the pro-am event, the 37-year-old from Worksop is putting family first and turning his back on the fortunes on offer in America. Jim Furyk, for instance, earned more than €8 million for winning the FedEx Cup play-offs a fortnight ago, but it simply does not interest Westwood.

One of nine Ryder Cup heroes playing this week – captain Colin Montgomerie is also in the field – Westwood said: “The FedEx Cup sits right in the middle of the kids’ summer holidays and I like going on holiday with them.

“I don’t want to be dictated to by having to go to America to play FedEx Cup when it doesn’t really mean that much to me. It doesn’t mean enough to me anyway.

“I think they (the PGA Tour) would like me to go and be a member there, but as of Monday evening I became an individual again and I do what’s right for Lee Westwood now.”

It was a conversation with manager Andrew “Chubby” Chandler that settled things in his mind.

“Chubby said ‘why take up membership in the States when you’ve been the most successful player in the world this year and (despite a seven-week injury lay-off) still have a great chance to go to world number one? You’ve come second in two major championships, you must be doing something right, why not stick to the same schedule?’

“I don’t want to get into a situation where I have to play events in America just to make up 15.”

That is the minimum requirement for US Tour members.

Ending the latest five-year reign of Woods would be a remarkable achievement for Westwood, who reached fourth in the rankings nine years ago but then slumped outside the top 250 and feared there might be no way back.

It reached its nadir with rounds of 81 and 79 for 136th place in the 2003 Portuguese Open.

“If somebody had said then that I was going to have a chance to go to number one I would have treated it with a fair amount of scepticism,” he added.

“But golf is a strange thing. Why not? I went from fourth to 250th, why not be able to go the other way? I’m quite a positive thinker, but I’m obviously in a better position than I would have ever dreamt back there.”

The last European to be number one was Nick Faldo in 1994 and Westwood would join Ian Woosnam, Fred Couples and David Duval in achieving it without winning a major.