French Open win for magnificent McDowell

G-Mac continues ‘funny’ season with third victory in his last three months

Silver service: Former US Open champion Graeme McDowell poses with the Open de France trophy

Graeme McDowell romped to a four-shot win in the Alstom Open de France to claim his third title of 2013.

The 2010 US Open champion fired a final round 67 at Le Golf National to finish on nine-under-par, with his nearest challenger Richard Sterne – who had been only one behind until bogeys at the 16th and 17th – finishing on five-under.

This latest win follows victories in the RBC Heritage on the PGA Tour and the European Tour’s Volvo World Matchplay Championship and it is expected to catapult McDowell to sixth on the world rankings when they are updated today.

It also continues a bizarre sequence of runs that has seen the Northern Irishman either win or miss the cut in his last eight events and the enormity of this latest triumph, with the Open Championship at Muirfield just around the corner, was not lost on him.

“It’s very special after the last couple of months,” McDowell admitted. “It’s been a bit of a battle. It’s been a funny year. My game has not felt far away most weeks but I have missed a lot more cuts than normal and missing cuts hurts.

“It certainly motivated me a lot the last few weeks. The US Open was a tough one to take and missing the cut in Ireland last week; it made me more hungry to want to be in positions like I was this afternoon.”

The key to McDowell’s success was keeping his error-count low all week. Indeed, he made only four bogeys in four rounds over what is widely considered to be one of the toughest golf courses on the European Tour.

Le Golf National will, of course, host the Ryder Cup in 2018 and ‘G-Mac’ reckons that it will prove to be a fine host stage for golf’s biggest matchplay event.

“This is such a difficult course here, we may have one of the greatest Ryder Cup venues in European golf history in 2018,” he said. “Anyone watching this week will get a sense for the match play drama this course is going to provide.”
Meanwhile, Scotland’s Marc Warren pipped fellow countryman Stephen Gallacher to a place in the Open Championship by just £754 after both posted impressive finishes in France.

Warren finished tied for 13th and Gallacher in a share of eighth. With the top five non-exempt players in the top 20 of the Race To Dubai at the end of the tournament securing a place at Muirfield, there was more to play for than just the title. And, despite dropping five shots in four holes down the stretch, Warren clung on to jump from 21st to 17th on the money list, with £517,494, with Gallacher moving from 23rd to 18th with £516,740, a difference of £754.

Glasgow man Warren takes the total number of Scots in next week’s Open to eight, joining Paul Lawrie, Sandy Lyle, Richie Ramsay, Scott Jamieson and Martin Laird, as well as Grant Forrest, Lloyd Saltman and George Murray in the championship.

Michael McEwan is the Deputy Editor of bunkered and has been part of the team since 2004. In that time, he has interviewed almost every major figure within the sport, from Jack Nicklaus, to Rory McIlroy, to Donald Trump. The host of the multi award-winning bunkered Podcast and a member of Balfron Golfing Society, Michael is the author of three books and is the 2023 PPA Scotland 'Writer of the Year' and 'Columnist of the Year'. Dislikes white belts, yellow balls and iron headcovers. Likes being drawn out of the media ballot to play Augusta National.

Deputy Editor