Graeme McDowell uncomfortable with Rory McIlroy’s ‘leadership role’

Graeme McDowell and Rory McIlroy claim that their off-course issues have bolstered their friendship and will play no role in whether they team this week at the Ryder Cup.

McDowell, however, suggested that the leading-man status of his Northern Irish countryman makes him too uneasy to continue their long-standing four-ball partnership.

“There’s no doubt our personal issues have been well documented the last couple years and I believe that we’ve both come out of the other end of that probably better friends than we were going into it,” McDowell told reporters on Tuesday about the reported rift between the two former best pals stemming from a nasty lawsuit concerning their former management company.

While GMac contended that all was well on the personal front, McIlroy’s standing as the world’s top-ranked golfer has altered the way the two interact inside the ropes.

“Tactically, you know, [our] golf dynamic has changed significantly from the first time we ever played together back in 2009 ... when perhaps the older brother/kind of younger brother leadership role that maybe I had with him, that’s changed. He’s the world’s No. 1 player. He’s a four-time major champion,” said McDowell, who earned a major title a year before McIlroy won his first of four. “The dynamic between him and [me] is changed forever. He would now be the leader of the two of us and perhaps the dynamic doesn’t work as well as it did in the past.”

A primary reason why the two are unlikely to tee it up together this week is that neither player wants the other to take charge. At Medinah, for example, the better-ball format was difficult for McDowell because McIlroy “likes to go first, I let him at it, and I kind of comes second.”

Indeed, McDowell wondered whether he needed to be on the team at all.

“You know, he’s standing there beating it 350 down the middle, and I put my tee in the ground thinking, ‘there’s not really a lot of point in me hitting this tee shot,’ and find myself throwing myself at it,” he said. “It kind of didn’t help my game much at Medinah playing better-ball with him.”

For McDowell, playing second fiddle to the Boy Wonder was clearly not a comfortable role for him.

“Perhaps I’m the kind of guy that needs that leadership role a little bit, who needs to feel like he is on at least on a level with the guy he’s playing with,” he said. “I’ll be the first to admit it.”

Of course, chemistry may be less important than the the duo’s record as a twosome in Ryder Cup play when European captain Paul McGinley finally seals the envelope with the names of his two-man units.

Playing together in team tourneys since 2009 when they won three of four Seve Trophy matches on Team Ireland in 2009 and 2011 (according to The Independent), GMac and Rory have also partnered for just two wins and half a point in six Ryder Cup sessions.

“Three or four months ago, I had a very strong view that they would have been [partners],” McGinley said on Monday. “But the more I look at their statistics, and the more I look at the different value I have with them, I’m thinking there may be a value in not doing it. But if I don’t do it, it certainly won’t be because of any [personal] issues.”

Pairing Rory with 2012 Ryder Cup hero Ian Poulter in the four-ball matches would seem to be a no-brainer for McGinley. McIlroy had a front-row seat to Poulter’s five straight birdies to end the final four-ball match at Medinah and inject the Euros with the momentum they needed to come from behind for the upset win over the Americans playing on home turf.

As for McDowell, the garrulous 2010 U.S. Open winner would relish taking shy Ryder Cup rookie Victor Dubuisson under his wing.

“I would very much embrace the task of, sort of the expression, blooding a guy like Victor, and I would love to play with him,” he said. “We are talking about potentially that happening, and like I say, I’m one of a few guys that could potentially do that.”

Alas, Rory and GMac, we hardly knew ye.