US Open triumph for McDowell captures universality of golf

2010 SEASON REVIEW: In a season where Tiger Woods's personal travails threatened to cast a shadow over the sport, the endeavours of others on the course provided more fitting highlights, writes PHILIP REID

ONE MORNING in June encapsulated how the world is indeed a village. Graeme McDowell – with his father, Kenny, close-by – stood on the waterfront overlooking the Pacific Ocean in Cannery Row and switched and swapped mobile phones with his manager Conor Ridge as one radio station after another, tea-time in Europe and breakfast-time on the west coast in the United States, sought a piece of the new US Open champion.

What they didn’t see, and which those of us there could, was the sparkle in G-Mac’s eyes and the smile creased across a stubbled face yet to see a razor. It was the morning after the night before and residents, café workers and holiday-makers on this peninsula in Monterey – made famous by the works of John Steinbeck who wrote of its sardine canneries, honky-tonks and flop-houses – stopped by the fountain outside the five-star hotel to take in McDowell and the huge US Open trophy that was seemingly affixed to his side.

In a season where Tiger Woods’s personal travails threatened to cast a shadow over the sport, the endeavours of others on the course ensured that golf, and especially the majors, provided more fitting highlights: Phil Mickelson, with both his wife and mother battling cancer, winning the US Masters; Louis Oosthuizen, a la “Shrek”, winning the Claret Jug at the home of golf at St Andrews; and Martin Kaymer demonstrating his fortitude to win the US PGA at Whistling Straits.

McDowell’s US Open triumph, though, captured, more than any other, the universality of golf. Here was a player who had honed his game as a youngster playing out of Rathmore Golf Club, an ordinary club with two extraordinary courses at Portrush on its doorstep, with his uncle Uel as his first swing coach and an education on a golfing scholarship in the USA, finding a way to claim one of golf’s greatest prizes. Not only that, the manner of McDowell’s win at the famed Pebble Beach links left no room for anyone to question his right to the major: he played the best golf, demonstrated the strongest mental fortitude.

Fate, for sure, can leave a curious calling card. In McDowell’s case, the catalyst for his stellar year of golf came last November, when Woods’s single-car accident – which would have wider implications for the world number one – left a place in the field for the Chevron World Challenge. McDowell was the recipient of the late invite, and a runner-up finish there ensured he stayed in the world’s top 50 and guaranteed his place in all the majors for 2010. Boy, did he make the most of it.

And, as we were to discover with his Ryder Cup heroics at Celtic Manor last week, McDowell’s US Open win was not to be the only time when that mix of brilliance and fortitude would be rewarded. In 2010, he was to prove some man for one man.

On the morning after his win at Pebble Beach – where he became the first European since Tony Jacklin in 1970 to lift the title – McDowell, who finished up a shot clear of Frenchman Gregory Havret, two clear of Ernie Els and three shots in front of Mickelson and Woods, reflected on the journey he had travelled in his quest.

“This game, when you are in the wilderness, can be a bleak and dark place. The tough times are tough. The game gives you no love back. When you want love, it doesn’t give you it. When you hope something is going to happen, it never happens. The second you start believing in yourself and you let it happen, it is amazing what’s around the corner,” said McDowell, who had returned to the winner’s enclosure on the European Tour just two weeks previously, in the Wales Open at Celtic Manor.

Indeed, McDowell also acknowledged that he possessed an iron will coming down the stretch, something which Europe’s captain Colin Montgomerie was to use to good advantage just over three months later in the Ryder Cup.

As McDowell put it at the time in explaining his coolness under pressure in closing out at Pebble Beach, “I’ve always been a fan of sports psychology, the work I did with Karl Morris over the years, the books I’ve read . . . when I put myself into position, I am pretty good. I don’t know why, I just have that peace of mind. I always think I have been good at closing out wins, from my college days.”

He added: “We’re playing golf in the Tiger Woods era. Tiger Woods appeared to be superhuman 10 years ago when he was doing what he was doing. He appeared superhuman. But when you see, I don’t want to call Pádraig Harrington an average guy, but when you see guys you play golf with every day and you compete with every week and I’ve played with in the last rounds of tournaments and you know that he is just a golfer who bleeds and breathes and plays the same golf ball and has to get it in the hole, it gives you the belief that it is possible, that it doesn’t take a superhuman effort like Tiger Woods to win a major championship.”

McDowell’s breakthrough major win was to give the Ulsterman an exposure away from golf – on the Jay Leno Show and a cameo appearance on the hit television show Entourage – that would also open up new corporate markets in the United States, but it also served as the inspiration for two other golfers to follow suit: Oosthuizen, like McDowell coached by Pete Cowan, claimed the British Open over the Old Course at St Andrews, and Kaymer kept his head while all around him lost theirs as he claimed the US PGA title at Whistling Straits.

While Oosthuizen proved a worthy winner of the Claret Jug, there was also a sense of what might have been for Rory McIlroy. The 21-year-old had opened with a first round 63 – equalling the lowest score in a major – but was caught up in the worst of the weather the following day and was literally blown away, shooting a round of 80.

To his credit, McIlroy recovered to finish in a share of third place, a position he would also claim in the season’s final major in the US PGA.

Nobody, though, could live with Oosthuizen at St Andrews. The South African’s journey to a maiden major had as uncomplicated an ending as any in this championship’s long history, as he finished seven strokes clear of Lee Westwood.

Whistling Straits was to prove an adventure for many, with Kaymer finally emerging from the turmoil. In a final round which players would later describe alternatively as “weird” and “wild”, he emerged from a three-hole play-off with Bubba Watson where the 18th hole, named “Dye-abolical” after the course designer Pete Dye, again lived up to its name in wreaking havoc on a potential champion.

In regulation, Dustin Johnson – who held a one-stroke lead standing on the 18th tee – had carved his shot wildly into the galleries down the right but, more pertinently, into a bunker that he thought was merely a trampled-down sandy area and he was subsequently given a two-stroke penalty for grounding his club in a sand trap which dropped him from a share of the lead down to fifth.

Then, in the play-off, the hole – a par four of 500 yards – proved to be the downfall for Watson. After playing the 10th and the 17th, the first two holes of the play-off, Kaymer and Watson were level – on one-under – and, so, were effectively in a winner-take-all scenario once returning to the finishing hole where both players found the right-hand rough.

On walking up to his ball, Kaymer originally planned on playing a six-iron approach towards the front of the green. His strategy, however, changed after Watson – playing first – sent his approach into Seven Mile Creek for a watery grave. Kaymer, then, decided to chip out and hit a seven-iron approach for his third to 15-feet. “When he hit it in the water hazard, I thought, ‘the best he can make is five’, so I thought if I laid up and give myself a chance for par, I’d give myself a chance to win the PGA Championship.”

He did just that.

And, yet, the major which evoked the most emotional scenes of all was the very first one. Back in April, Mickelson claimed his fourth major. With his wife Amy and mother Mary – both battling breast cancer – present at a tournament for the first time in almost a year, Mickelson played breathtaking golf in Saturday’s third round with a run of eagle-birdie-birdie enabling him to barge into contention and then played a cavalier game on Sunday to see off Westwood.

As Westwood’s caddie Billy Foster put it afterwards, he thought he had seen the greatest player – in terms of genius and creativity – when Seve Ballesteros was at his height. Mickelson’s wizardry had forced him to revise that assessment.

Putt of the year

When did Graeme McDowell become not just a good putter, but a great putter? On the 16th hole in the decisive match of the Ryder Cup (above) with Hunter Mahan, G-Mac – who held his nerve for himself at Pebble Beach – held his nerve for a continent in the Usk Valley. The Ulsterman had hit his approach shot in to 15 feet and holed a birdie putt that put him en route to a victory and Ryder Cup hero status. “It was the best putt I’ve hit in my life. It was a fast putt. I just had to get it going – thankfully, it caught an edge.”

– (Photograph: Richard Heathcote/Getty Images)

Shot of the year

It didn’t win him the tournament, but Phil Mickelson’s cavalier approach was epitomised by his stunning approach to the 13th hole in the final round of the Masters at Augusta. Facing a four-foot gap between two pine trees after a wayward drive, Lefty conjured up an audacious shot when he hit a six-iron from a pine-needles lie that finished just three feet from the hole, some 207 yards away. Unfortunately, Mickelson didn’t hole the short eagle putt. “I think most people would have chipped that one out, but that’s what great players do – they pull off great shots at the right time,” remarked his principal challenger at the time Lee Westwood.

– (Photograph: David Cannon/Getty Images)