Defending U.S. Open champion Graeme McDowell doesn’t look back

From Bethesda, Md. — The day at the U.S. Open belonged to his young friend and countryman Rory McIlroy, who shot 65 and led by three.

Graeme McDowell, the other half of Northern Ireland’s two-headed golf god, is certainly fine with that.

McDowell has taken an interesting approach to this year’s U.S. Open, especially novel because he won last year’s. Instead of looking at it as a chance to build on, or allowing himself to feel the pressure of responsibility or need to represent himself, his country and his sport well because of the spotlight shining on him, he sees the book closed.

He talked extensively about this Tuesday and again after his round of 70 Thursday. For much of the year, as U.S. Open champion, he had been shuffled off to just about everywhere but Buffalo. He indicated that, although he enjoyed the spoils that came with his victory at Pebble Beach and was more than willing to spend time doing interviews, posing for pictures and glad-handing with sponsors, he needed a starting point to get back to the future. And this year’s Open is it, he said.

“When I landed on the plane here,” he said, “I felt a weight lift off my shoulders.”

This stance, of course, is psychobabble. Still, he not only believes it, he demonstrated in the first round Thursday that it is working for him. Which is all that matters.

His one-under-par round was nice positioning. He is five shots off the lead, and there are nine players ahead of him and 11 tied with him. With 54 holes left, there is enough tossing and turning still to come that leading after the first day, even a nice three-shot margin such as McIlroy’s, isn’t all that meaningful. Like horses in the Kentucky Derby, golfers seldom go wire to wire in majors.

So, because this tournament has only just begun, McDowell is right where he wants to be, especially given his I’ll-be-happier-out-of-the-bright-lights stance. Rest assured he’ll also be just fine being back in them, come late Sunday afternoon.

“I felt really, really good this morning,” he said, shortly after his metronome-like 35-35 that included two birdies and one bogey and straight par golf on the back nine.

“I felt normal. It felt like a regular major championship. It didn’t feel like I was defending anything. So I just went out there.”

His stance is interesting enough to make psychologists stroke their chin a bit. McDowell’s 2010 was a season of wild dreams come true. Before he maintained his swing and his poise on that final 18 holes at one of the world’s legendary courses, and won one of the world’s legendary titles, he had been an indistinguishable touring pro who made a nice living with a lot of T-36’s at places such as Hilton Head and Keju Island, South Korea.

Then, after not only winning at Pebble, but impressing the media with a friendly manner and quotable articulateness, he added to his ballooning positive public image with two more stunning, high-profile moments before the year ended.

At the Ryder Cup at Celtic Manor in Wales, he made the winning putt, an impossible little downhill twister that put the final dagger in the heart of USA golf. Europe won by one point, secured by McDowell against Hunter Mahan, which led to the European celebration that ensued on the resort balcony overlooking the picturesque Twenty Ten golf course.

Then, two months later, in Tiger Woods’ own Chevron World Challenge at Sherwood Country Club in Thousand Oaks, he did it again. Woods, struggling to find a victory, or at least a positive, hit his approach shot close on the 18th hole for a sure birdie that would give him the victory, if McDowell missed a long putt. But McDowell didn’t miss, and he made another long birdie putt on the first playoff hole as Woods, closer again, waited for another chance to win.

When Woods missed, the Northern Irishman had another highlight page for an incredible 2010 scrapbook. For years, nobody did that to Woods. Nobody dared. Now McDowell had, and even in Woods’ altered state, it was shocking.

Although McDowell’s 70 here Thursday was quiet, it was not uneventful.

On the monster ninth hole, 636 yards of par five, both McDowell and playing partner Louie Oosthuizen tried to position themselves for ensuing shots by laying up. Both did so at about 220 yards, and when their balls came to rest, in the middle of the fairway, they were actually touching.

“I’d never seen that before,” McDowell said. “Never on the fairway.”

Oosthuizen’s ball was to the left, so he hit first, after McDowell marked his ball a club length away. Had Oosthuizen made a divot, there would have been several officials hovering around as McDowell placed his ball. But Oosthuizen hit it cleanly and McDowell said, “I was thankful for that.”

Two holes later, near where he was about to hit, a fan collapsed because of a heart attack and paramedics rushed to treat him. USGA officials said later that the man was in intensive care at a nearby hospital.

“It certainly puts golf in perspective, when you see someone fighting for their life,” said McDowell, as usual, saying the right thing.

Then there was the interview-ending attempt to get forward-looking McDowell to look back just one more time. He talked about having to pack up the U.S. Open trophy and ship it back before he came here.

“Did you give the trophy one last kiss?” he was asked.

“I didn’t,” he said. “I’m not that sentimental.”

Not now. Not in Graeme McDowell’s 2011.

bill.dwyre@latimes.com