Peter Cowen’s coaching academy near Sheffield has been broken into 25 times including seven break-ins this year alone but fortunately tapes of Graeme McDowell’s golf swing in 2010 remain secure.

Cowen replayed the tapes to McDowell ahead of the Ulsterman shooting a four under par 66 on the opening day of the Scottish Open at Gullane.

McDowell, who has missed the cut in his past two European Tour starts, had raced to six under par before bogeying his closing two holes in a four under par 66 on the par 70 Gullane Golf Club layout.

Graeme McDowell chatting with SKY’s Tim Barter post his first round of the 2015 Scottish Open.

It left McDowell trailing just three shots behind Denmark’s Thjorbjorn Olesen, who after losing out in a play-off in the inaugural Mauritius Open has then missed the cut in five of six events.

McDowell, who shares 10th place with Shane Lowry and the Americans Rickie Fowler and Matt Kuchar, had left Versailles last Friday after missing the cut in the double defence of his French Open title determined in seeing Cowen to ‘strip his mind’ of too much technical information.

Cowen achieved that during an hour’ session with the current World No. 52 ahead of the Scottish Open that is a former champion.

Peter Cowen says he’s lucky after 25 break-ins to have managed to locate video of Grame McDowell’s swing from the 2010 Open. (Photo – Stuart Adams www.golftourimages.com)

“All my lap tops and cameras were stolen in one of the man break-in’s at my academy in Rotherham but then I found an old computer that I didn’t realise I had downloaded some of Graeme’s swings,” said Cowen.

“Actually, the video was taken on the practice range at St. Andrews ahead of the 2010 Open so we sat down and looked at the video this week.

“And without talking technical I asked Graeme what did he see and while he saw slight differences and he said his swing is much better now but it’s not functional, so I asked him how then is he going to make it more functional.

“Graeme actually almost deduced the answer himself by looking at the video, and you would expect that as player should be able to do that.

“As well, he had just won the U.S. Open about a month earlier so looking at his swing from 2010 he admitted it was not as good as he thought it was back then compared to what it is now.

“It’s all about matching movements and sometimes you can make a movement look better bit it doesn’t match the movement that is going to hit the ball.

“So that what was happening to Graeme as he wasn’t matching movement and found himself, as he’s been saying, caught up in too much technical stuff and you he couldn’t  see the wood for the trees.”

And McDowell, who capped his round with four birdies in succession from the fifth hole, concurred.

“After looking at that video with Pete I have tried to simplify my thoughts a little bit and I’ve narrowed my stance and just trying to use my body to swing the clubface back to how I used to swing it from that video on the range at St. Andrews,” he said.

“I also just needed a low number to get back my belief and confidence back, and today will go a long way towards that.”

Graeme McDowell facing the media after his opening round of 66 on day one of the 2015 Scottish Open.