US COLLEGE GOLF WAS THE CATALYST IN McDOWELL CAREER

FROM THE DAILY TELEGRAPH WEBSITE
GRAEME McDOWELL INTERVIEW
"I’m not like a Sergio Garcia or a Rory McIlroy, thrust into the limelight every week. I wasn’t a boy wonder like them. A lot of people would have been thinking who the hell I was after picking up the US Open.”
Not now. McDowell’s magic carpet ride in 2010 also took him to victory at the Wales Open, the Andalucia Masters and last week at the Chevron World Challenge in California, where he became the first player to give Woods a four-shot lead on the final day and emerge the winner. McDowell was required to sink a 20-footer to take Woods to a play-off and a 25-footer to win at the first extra hole.
Graeme McDowell is on a roll, an overnight sensation eight years in the making. The spectacular shedding of anonymity in 2010 is part of the charm of McDowell’s story. The years spent grinding in the ranks, and before that in the alien environs of American college golf, provide the substance.
“I went out to the States in 1999. I was 19. I was at Queens in Belfast studying engineering, but I was distracted. I got a phone call in THE November, asking if I would be interested in playing college golf in Alabama. Hell yeah.
“I grew a lot as a person, put on a stone eating ---- and drinking beer. I was spending time around guys brought up to be winners. We are much more humble people in Northern Ireland, understated.
"All of a sudden I was thrust into this American lifestyle where everyone seemed brash and cocky and wanted to be winners. That did a lot for me. I came back that first summer and won pretty much everything in Ireland, got myself in the Walker Cup team and by the third year was No 1 college player in the States.
“If I hadn’t gone over there would I be sitting where I am now? I kind of think I wouldn’t. I believe everybody is probably capable of great things but not everyone gets the opportunity, or finds something they are passionate about.
"I was pretty average at most things. I’m not the kind of guy who can pick up a tennis racket and start whipping forehands over the net. Luckily I got the golf bug early.”