Waiting to win again
Last updated: 19th January 2008
Westwood: Great support in England
He suggested I get rid of the belly-putter, which wasn't that big a brainwave because it couldn't have got much worse.
Lee Westwood
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September 16-21 2008
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2008, like 2007, is the season that some are tipping to Lee Westwood to finally win a major championship.
Westwood has won 28 tournaments, a European Order of Merit and four out of five Ryder Cups but, like Colin Montgomerie, he can't transform that kind of form into major success, despite 40 attempts to date.
Westwood is used to waiting for a win though. In spite of all that success, Westwood has still sustained barren periods when he has gone as long as two to three years without a victory. After capturing the 2000 European order of Merit winner and winning six events in a season in 2000, he dropped to 182 in the world without a win for nearly three years.
He suffered a similar story between 2005 and 2007 but fortunately he is back up to 23rd now after two wins last season, in Andalusia and at the Belfry, and the indications are that he is moving in the right direction.
Golf Night expert Mark Roe caught up with Westwood recently and he asked the 34-year-old Englishman if he felt, when he arrived in Spain for the Andalusia Open, if a victory to end another long wait was just around the corner.
Westwood said: "I hadn't played particularly well in the States - well I had played alright but my putting was at an all-time low. It was at an all-time low in the first round as well. I used a belly putter and I think I had 36 or 37 putts. It was fairly disastrous.
"I decided to go for the shorter one in the second round and I just started knocking a few in. I think I shot eight-under in the second round and seven-under in the third round - with two bogeys to finish, so that could easily have been a 63.
"Then I played well on the last round. I got off to a good start, was six-under through ten, and then put a bit of pressure on myself at the end but I ended up winning by two. So it all ended up successful."
Westwood's father John has been their through thich and thin in his son's career and he was there to offer some advice, particularly on the putting, in Andalusia after the first round.
Westwood said: "He suggested I get rid of the belly-putter, which wasn't that big a brainwave because it couldn't have got much worse than the first day but he has helped me all through my game, on all different aspects.
"He has a good eye on putting and spots when I am doing things wrong and he gave me a couple of things to work on. The lie of the putter was poor, the rhythm wasn't very good and I worked on those and started knocking a few in.
"And you know what it is like when you start knocking a few in, your confidence builds up and all of a sudden you can see the hole again."
Roe asked if after three and half years waiting for a win, was it an extra special feeling? Did Westwood ever get the feeling he might not win again?
"No, not really," he said. "And this kind of gap of not winning wasn't the same as the previous gap. The previous gap between 2000 and 2003, when I won the BMW, it seemed like there was more pressure on me and more people were highlighting that gap and the fact that I hadn't won.
"This time round they hadn't really heaped that much pressure on because I was still playing fairly consistent golf and getting there or threrabouts. It wasn't such a dramatic slump or period of not winning. It didn't really feel like I was playing poorly in that stretch; the breaks weren't going for me and I wasn't finishing the job off when I should have done."
After Andalusia, Westwood's second victory came the British Masters at the Belfry, as close as Westwood gets to a local course on the European Tour and he revealed it was a special victory.
He said: "That was great. I had been showing some good form going into that. Before the Open Championship I had been to see a guy called Paul Hurrian down in Birmingham to work on my putting and a few months previous to that at the Open Championship we (Westwood and Roe) had started working on my short game, which was really starting to pay dividends and I was comfortable with that.
"I was also hitting the ball well, hitting it more or less where I wanted to and the distance control with the iron shots was getting a lot better.
"The week of the Belfry I was coing off three top tens and I really should have won one of the previous three weeks and it all came together that week. It was a spectacular last round I suppose and a spectacular way to finish the last round, finishing birdie, eagle, par and a five shot win flattered me a bit because I was only one or two shots in front most of the day and then finished with a big spurt and it looked easier than it was.
"It is only an hour and a half away from where I live and there were a lot of golf club members there from Worksop Golf Club and a lot Nottinghamshire people had gone down there.
"I get a lot of support whenever I play in England - I seem to be fairly popular - and it was great to win in front of them. It was an emotional moment coming up the last - you know what the last at the Belfry is like, the crowd all gather down the side of the 18th and I got a clap from start to finish of the hole, which was lovely and being four, may even have been five at the time, meant I could play the hole relatively comfortably."
Lee Westwood is playing in the European Tour's Abu Dhabi Championship, live on Sky Sports. Follow the The Gulf Swing of the European Tour live on Sky. Abu Dhabi, Qatar Masters, Dubai Desert Classic... Click here for details.
