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Graeme McDowell goes into the Volvo World Match Play looking to defend his second title of 2014, although he will have to do so at a different venue to where he won last year’s tournament.
The Thracian Cliffs Golf and Beach Resort in Bulgaria hosted the Volvo World Match Play when the Northern Irishman was victorious in May 2013.
Now the famous competition, enjoying its 50th anniversary, has returned to its spiritual home of south-east England with The London Golf Club in Kent staging the event.
In July McDowell, who won three points out of three as Europe retained The Ryder Cup last month, defended the Alstom Open de France crown.
While that was at Le Golf National both years, he will face quite different conditions to Bulgaria this week as he goes in search of back-to-back Volvo World Match Play successes.
“I’m happy to be back in London where this tournament belongs,” said McDowell, who has not competed since The Ryder Cup.
“I’m excited about my defence. It’s nice to not have to switch gears from my couple weeks off from my match play frame of mind.
“I was able to keep the match play sort of switch flicked the last couple weeks, and look forward to coming into this week and continuing hopefully where I left off at Gleneagles and win a couple matches and get myself into the nitty gritty over the weekend.”
McDowell will open his defence on Wednesday against in-form Frenchman Alexander Levy, the winner of last week’s weather-affected Portugal Masters.
The 35 year old McDowell plays mainly in the United States, but still sits 14th in The Race to Dubai while occupying 18th in The Official World Golf Rankings.
“I guess I haven't played a lot of golf since the FedEx really. I kind of hung my hat on my preparation for The Ryder Cup and ended up giving Wales a miss,” he continued.
“Thankfully it worked out. I felt fresh and ready for The Ryder Cup and performed reasonably well.
“I’m coming here feeling appreciated and actually excited to play golf this week, which is cool.
“I'll play both events in China and then obviously The Race to Dubai. So the goals are to try and get as far as I can this week and try and put some money on the board, and then go to China, obviously trying to chase my way into the top - I say the top five (in the) Race to Dubai.”
McDowell is the top seed in the Gustaf Larson Group, whilst the leading lights in the Arnold Palmer, Mark McCormack and Assar Gabrielsson groups are his Ryder Cup team-mates Henrik Stenson, Jamie Donaldson and Victor Dubuisson respectively.
But for Thomas Bjørn withdrawing due to a neck injury, McDowell would have been one of five recent Ryder Cup winners in action this week.
United States’ Patrick Reed involvement means there are six competitors from Gleneagles overall.
“We were potentially going to have seven Ryder Cup players this week. Obviously Thomas has pulled out so we have six, with a little bit of a glimmer of an exciting invitation with Patrick Reed being here. I think it has the right dynamic of a strong field,” McDowell added.
“Yes, we are missing a few headliners like the Rorys and the Westwoods and whatever, the top, top real echelon of the game. But it's a very solid field, let's be honest and like you say, put a show on, hopefully the sun shines and we get a good crowd and quality lineup Saturday and Sunday to showcase.
“When you look at the trophy and the names on it, this tournament deserves a great spot in the calendar. It deserves a quality venue like this one this week. It's a phenomenal purse. Volvo have done a phenomenal job for this tournament and like you say, leaving a title sponsor, we don't want to be losing this event.
“This event needs to be reinstated to its former glory and we'll do everything we can to support that.”
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