Lee Westwood bypassed The Players Championship to rest after some event in South Korea. Then 12 days ago he suggested the “fifth major” had pushed down in the pecking order by the World Golf Championships series.All right, raise your hand if you saw this coming.
Westwood leads after 36 and 54 holes, hangs around the lead on a busy Sunday – and sees his hopes dashed by the island 17th hole. A hard wedge got too high in the jet stream and was knocked into the water, leading to a double bogey.
“Disappointed, but not something I’m going to pull my hair out over,” the English pro said after landing in a tie for fourth, four shots behind winner Tim Clark. “If you don’t play well, you don’t deserve to win.”
“Disappointed, but not something I’m going to pull my hair out over,” the English pro said after landing in a tie for fourth, four shots behind winner Tim Clark. “If you don’t play well, you don’t deserve to win.”
Those who read into the yin and yang of everyday life might tell you Westwood was taunting fate. Last year, he said his schedule was too busy to add The Players after placing 34th in the Ballantine’s Championship.
Then before the Quail Hollow Championship began two weeks ago, he raised more eyebrows by saying the WGC series had put three events ahead of The Players in his mind.
“So what is it, eighth on the list now?” Westwood concluded.
“So what is it, eighth on the list now?” Westwood concluded.
You know what they say: Don’t anger the golf gods.
He has been welcomed into the European team with similar delight – particularly after doubts that he would be fit enough to face the US at Celtic Manor on Friday. “Yeah,” Westwood says, “two or three weeks ago I was fairly snappy. I’ve never been injured before and this year it feels like I’ve hardly played. Since the Open in July I’ve not really been able to play competitively at all.
I probably taught her everything she knows,” Lee Westwood says in his deadpan way as he eyes the colourful bouquet that his mother has arranged at Worksop Golf Club. He might be ranked the world’s third-best golfer, and considered the best player on Europe’s Ryder Cup team this week, but Westwood is so relieved to have recovered from his recent injury that the quips fly around the clubhouse office where his mother’s latest floral display assumes pride of place. “I might have given it a touch more body, and tweaked it here and there, but it’s pretty good.”
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