McGinley fails to identify his woes

Sometimes, the turnaround can come like a bolt from the blue. A year on from the weekend that changed his season, Paul McGinley - for one - is kind of hoping that lightning strikes twice, although the time he spent on the practice ground of the Smurfit Course at The K Club yesterday with his coach Bob Torrance would indicate the Ryder Cup golfer is more aware than anyone that the woes with his current form are more deep-rooted than simply finding a quick fix.

You remember what happened in the Smurfit Kappa European Open last year? McGinley was in the airport on Friday evening, preparing to fly to his home in Sunningdale. He was convinced he had missed the cut. However, the cut mark rose, his luggage was retrieved from the airplane's hold and the Dubliner played the best golf of anyone over the weekend, finishing fourth and basically securing his place on Europe's Ryder Cup team.

"It was a week of destiny, or whatever you want to call it," recalled McGinley. "Things went for me that weekend. Golf is like anything in life, it runs with momentum."

Yet, McGinley's current position in the European Tour order of merit - 97th - is at odds with his ability and his aspirations.

"It's very frustrating, extremely so. And the real problem is that I'm not getting to the bottom of it. That's the worrying thing, that I haven't been able to work out why. The longer I go without success, the more I keep striving . . . it's not about (having) a good week, it's about the way I am playing. I'm not playing well in practice and I'm not playing well in tournaments.

"I'm battling like hell, fighting like hell and I'm making all the cuts. But there's not enough quality in my game. I'm not raising it to the level I'm normally capable of playing. There's a lot more I want to achieve in the game, but I've lost my way with my golf swing. I'm not hitting quality golf shots and I need to get to the bottom of it."

McGinley's statistics for the season bare out his concerns. His putting statistics are actually quite decent, 20th in average putting and 29th in putts per greens in regulation on the Genworth Financial statistics; but he is 113th in greens in regulation, 151st in driving distance, 70th in driving accuracy and 57th in stroke average.

Yesterday, in the sort of weather you wouldn't send your worse enemy out in, McGinley - and Torrance - braved the heavy rain in his quest to work things out. McGinley is not just seeking the answer on the range. Throughout his career, in good times and bad, he has kept journals of his swing thoughts. "I've got notes that I'm trawling through. Every time I've played well, I write it down. Every time I've played badly, I write it down," he said.

McGinley is scouring those notes in attempting to find answers. "That's why I have the notes. It's about producing the quality shot and trusting your swing to pull off the quality shot. Unless you know you are doing it with your golf swing, you can't perform with the trust necessary to play top level golf. I've had it in the past. It's not elusive, because I know what it is. It's just that I'm lost at the moment. It's easy to blame coaches and all that kind of thing. But the buck stops with me. I'm going to have to figure out what the problem is. I'm playing 15 years as a pro, and I should know my own game . . . what I'm missing are the nuts and bolts of my game."

This season has been mediocre to date for McGinley, a tied-16th finish in the Qatar Masters representing his best finish. But it is not that he hasn't been working hard. In fact, he could be working too hard for the solution. "I'm working extremely hard on my game. I'm hitting so many balls and working so hard in practice that I'm using up a lot of energy. It's taking a lot out of me every round that I play at the moment."

Yet, McGinley's desire and work ethic are so strong that you'd bet he'll turn things around. Maybe not in one weekend, but over time. "For me, it's not about goals. It's not about temperament. It's not about desire or anything like that. Everybody said last year that it was the pressure of (making) the Ryder Cup that was making me play poorly. I knew it wasn't. If that was the case, after the Ryder Cup was gone, and I played well in the Ryder Cup, why did I not play great after that? I've gone on with mediocrity ever since. It's not about the Ryder Cup. I'm (just) not playing well."

One thing that McGinley does have in his favour this week, though, is that he likes the golf course; he would even prefer it to the Palmer Course on the other side of the River Liffey. "I don't know what it is, it just suits my eye better. It plays with more wind and has more of a linksy feel about it. I just feel more comfortable on it. I like it."