Perhaps it’s the lure of team golf. Perhaps it is putting down a marker for the Ryder Cup later in the year. Perhaps it’s down to the money.
Whatever the true lure, Graeme McDowell and Jamie Donaldson departed Orlando following the Arnold Palmer Invitational on Sunday night to head for Kuala Lumpur, via London, a journey as the crow flies of 10,232 miles, to take part in this week's EurAsia Cup. It'll represent their last outings prior to the Masters.
It may be a poor relation of the Ryder Cup but, unlike the most famed team event in golf which carries no prizemoney, the Europe-Asia equivalent has a pot worth $4 million to be divvied up and Donaldson, with his eyes on a debut appearance on Paul McGinley's team at Gleneagles come September, is eager to show what he can do in matchplay.
Final round
"Team Europe is certainly strong on paper – look at what Victor Dubuisson did at the WGC–Accenture Match Play and Pablo Larrazábal shot a 67 in the final round in the Abu Dhabi HSBC Golf Championship to hold off Rory McIlroy," claimed Donaldson of the men assembled by captain Miguel Angel Jimenez, adding:
“Stephen Gallacher won the Dubai Desert Classic title and then there’s Ryder Cup legend Graeme McDowell – it’s an exciting team!”
McDowell showed good form over the weekend – with rounds of 67-70 – at Bay Hill to finish tied-10th.
Indeed, only champion Matt Every played better golf in the final two rounds. Part of the reason for McDowell’s improvement in the Arnold Palmer Invitational was a switch in drivers mid-tournament, an older Cleveland Classic model put back into the bag at the expense of a new Srixon driver.
Of putting the Cleveland driver back into play, McDowell explained: “This driver is not as long as I have been using this year, but it is a hell of a lot more accurate.”
The club stayed with him for the onward trip to Malaysia.
Main task
McDowell is the lone Irishman in the Europe team for the event in Kuala Lumpur, with Jimenez – who arrived ahead of his team – claiming that his main task as captain was to ensure his players "stay calm, in my experience golfers tend to play their best when they are in a good frame of mind".
All ten of Jimenez’s team are currently ranked inside the top 70 of the world rankings and are hot favourites to claim the trophy.
Meanwhile, Pádraig Harrington – who shot a final round 80 in Bay Hill which saw hip drop out of the top-30 down to tied-68th – has moved on to San Antonio for the Texas Open aware that time is running out in his quest to earn a late, late invite into next month’s Masters tournament.
The Dubliner needs to win either this week or at next week’s Houston Open if he is to earn a spot in the field at the season’s first Major.
His round of 80 on Sunday equalled his worst ever round on the PGA Tour – which came in the final round of last year’s Travelers Championship in Connecticut – but he claimed that he would take a “lot of positives” with him to a tournament where he had a top-10 finish last season.
The statistics would indicate much of Harrington’s problems come with his putting in the 15-25 feet range, where he has only a 5.88 per cent strike rate on tour this season. Harrington had 34 putts in his final round at Bay Hill.
