McDowell wants to pick his own brains

GRAEME McDowell would love to play golf with former versions of himself as he looks to find the missing piece of the jigsaw in the £5.4 million Dubai Duty Free Irish Open at Port Stewart.

McDowell, who was born just a few miles away i n Portrush and is staying in the house he bought for his parents after his first European Tour win in 2002, has yet to record a top-10 finish this season.

The 37-year-old is on the verge of dropping out of the world’s top 100 for the first time since January 2008 and has yet to qualify for the Open but believes he is playing much better than such facts suggest.

“I always wish I could go back and play with a former version of myself just to see what I was like,” said the 2010 US Open champion, who also holed the winning putt in the Ryder Cup that year.

“I’d love a fourball with myself in 2010 and myself in 2000 when I came back from the States and had the summer I did (winning three major amateur titles) because I feel like I’m a better player sitting here than I was in 2010. However, results would argue otherwise.

“I feel like I’m smarter and I know about the sport. Maybe that’s the problem. I think knowing too much about something can be dangerous. Certainly in the game of golf, knowledge can be a little scary, because you can’ un-know things, the scar tissue builds up. It’s an interesting game from that point of view.

“I’d love to go back and see what it was all about, when I was at my best and carefree, and certainly in 2010 things became awfully easy. I just ripped it down the middle, hit it on and knocked the putt in and just kept doing that.”