## **Graeme McDowell: How G-Mac coped with the ultimate pressure**
Few golfers have dealt so effectively with crunch moments of incredible pressure on the course as Graeme McDowell.
He is one of the few Europeans to crack the American stranglehold on the U.S. Open with his battling, grinding win at Pebble Beach in 2010.
A couple of months later, the Northern Irishman holed the vital putt in the anchor match of the Ryder Cup to clinch the trophy for his continent.
So it’s fascinating to hear the man universally known as G-Mac giving his thoughts on how to train yourself to shine when the spotlight is at its most intense.
“There is no magic potion for a player to understand how to deal with pressure,” McDowell told LIV Golf podcast Fairway To Heaven in 2024. “Everyone is different.
“You have to learn about yourself, you have to put yourself out there a few times, go and mess it up a bit a few times and learn from that. You ask, ‘Am I the type to get a little fast or slow under pressure, do I have negativity that comes in?’
“You have to figure out who you are when the heat is on, then have a plan for when the heat comes. When the demons come and ask the questions, you’ve got to have the answers.”
For McDowell, this meant a rigid pre-shot routine and an awareness that he tended to get a little “slow and methodical” under pressure – so he would try to speed up a bit.
Young golfers could learn so much from a man, still only in his mid-forties, who has done it all at the highest level of the game.
Smash GC