Portstewart, Northern Ireland …

Graeme McDowell’s won a U.S. Open along with 13 other victories and played in four Ryder Cups in his pro career but it doesn’t stop being brought back to earth when revisiting his beloved Rathmore Golf Club at Portrush.

The clubhouse sports one of just two U.S. Open replicas he ordered after his Pebble Beach success.

McDowell spent his childhood days, including no doubt skipping school sometimes, in honing his game on both courses at the famed Royal Portrush club.

But that seemingly all counted for nothing on Monday when he revisited the club ahead of this week’s Dubai Duty Free Irish Open at close by Portstewart.

“I had a pint with my dad and my brother in my home golf club of Rathmore on Monday and I always joke that people do treat me the same way as they treated me as I was 15 years old,” he said.

“I feel like they look at me the same way.  I feel like they say the same things to me.  You get a clip around the ear when you need one:  “What the hell were you doing last week at The French Open?  I had a few quid on you.”

“It is a sense of grounding and kind of coming home for me, and like I say, people treating me the same way they always have.  It’s nice and you kind of gain that humility that I think’s important.

“It’s different and special, and you certainly lose that perspective of what it’s like to be anonymous, I feel like living in the US, you’re fairly anonymous out there apart from the golfing world.  But you come back to Ireland and it is a Village of Ireland and people kind of know who you are and what you’re up to.

“Like I say, I do love coming back up here.  People are great and I’m very proud of where I’ve come from”.

McDowell’s is so complete he is staying in his old bedroom while mum, Marion is cooking all his meals.

“The room I’m in this week is not my childhood bedroom and this is the house I actually bought for my mom and dad after I won in Sweden in 2002,” he said.

“I’m trying to think what my childhood bedroom looked like.  I shared a room with my little brother until I was probably 13 or 14.

“But on the walls there were probably more football players up there than there were golfers, so it was probably George Best and various Manchester United stars in the 80s and 90s.

“When it came to golf, I was always kind of more ‑‑ we had the North of Ireland Championship every year and that was kind of my ‑‑ I used to ball spot there and sign boy on the weekends.

“Iain Pyman won the British Amateur in ’93 at Portrush.  And we joked about that many a time at dinner because I sign‑boyed for him his last semifinal and final.  I think Stuart Cage was up there that week; he played well.

“I was always good at kind of idolising the people ‑‑ so the north of Ireland, Garth McGimpsey, was probably one of my early idols.  I used to chase him around; watch him.

“I also became very obsessed by achieving the things he achieved in amateur golf.  Sort of visualising that Irish golf bag.  That’s what I wanted.

“It was never really ‑‑ I didn’t have much exposure to the professional game.  We didn’t really have the means to be jumping on planes to go to the British Open.  I was never at a British Open in my young days.  I was never at an Irish Open.

“So, amateur golf was kind of my thing.  I think I only attended one or two professionals before I turned pro.”,