World number one Martin Kaymer admits now he blundered by trying to change his game for the Masters earlier this month, when he spoke at the BMW PGA Championship media day at Wentworth.
For the fourth time in four visits Kaymer missed the halfway cut at Augusta, but this was the first time he had worked during his build-up on trying to shape the ball to suit some of the holes.
Paired with Lee Westwood, the man he had taken the top spot off six weeks earlier, the 26-year-old German opened with a six-over-par 78.
He improved six shots on that in the second round, but still finished joint 82nd of the 99-strong field.
'The first day I was trying to play the golf course in a perfect way - I think that was a big mistake,' Kaymer said today at Wentworth, where in a month's time he will try to add the European Tour's flagship BMW PGA title to his US PGA crown last August.
'Hit draws on certain holes, low shots, high shots, try to place the ball always on the right side of the hole. It was just not me - it's not the way I play.
'The second day I went out to just play my game. Play the way I want to play the golf course and not how the course wants to be played. So I did that and it was better.
'I need to play my game and it does not matter what course I play. Whether I play Augusta or Dusseldorf it should never change my swing or my golf game or my strategy.'
'I have a few goals and one is definitely to win here. When I played for the first time in 2007 it was a huge thing to me and I called my brother from the putting green and said 'do you know where I'm standing now?'
'It's the home of the European Tour and it would be fantastic to win.'
Whether Kaymer is still number one by then remains to be seen. He could even be down to number three this Sunday. Luke Donald will go top if he captures the Heritage in America and if he fails to do that Westwood can reclaim the position by taking the Indonesian Masters.
'It's important to be number one, but it's not the most important thing in my life.
'One day it will change and I will be two, three, five - hopefully it does not happen, but it's not something I am scared to lose and as long as I try 100% that's all I can do.'
