Graeme McDowell is back in a major championship this week at the US Open, ending a six-year absence from golf's biggest stages and turning a qualification run in Dallas into a rare chance at Shinnecock Hills. The 46-year-old said he is not sure he would ever have gotten the chance to show his nine-year-old son Wills him playing in one.
For McDowell, the moment carries more weight because major championships were once routine. He made 34 consecutive appearances in majors between 2008 and 2016 and won the 2010 US Open at Pebble Beach, but this is his first major appearance since 2019, when he last made a cut at the Open Championship at Royal Portrush. He arrived here by surviving a 36-hole qualifier in Dallas last month, a route that underlines how far he has had to work to get back on this stage.
That return is also why the week feels different now. McDowell said there is a large appreciation for simply being here again, after a stretch in which those starts stopped coming. He joined Rory McIlroy in missing the cut at Shinnecock Hills in 2018, but this time the challenge begins before the weekend, with his place in the field earned only after the Dallas qualifier and not handed to him as it once was.
The course itself leaves little room for sentiment. McDowell said he will have to drive the ball well because the fairways are generous but trouble follows if players miss them. He added that the greens demand discipline, that golfers must know where to miss, and that the bunkers contain a lot of stones and shells. In his view, the test runs through every part of the game and will punish impatience.
He has not been away from winning entirely, with his last victory coming at the 2020 Saudi International and his best LIV finish a tie for second in Virginia last year. But majors have been the missing piece, and McDowell said the sands of time continue to deplete. The next step is simple and severe: he has to make the cut at Shinnecock Hills if this return is going to become more than a brief reunion with the game’s biggest stage.
