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WGC AMERICAN EXPRESS CHAMPIONSHIP

September 28, 2004

Lee Westwood

KILKENNY, IRELAND

RODDY WILLIAMS: Lee, thank you very much for coming in today and joining us here. Welcome to the American Express championship here at Mount Juliet. First of all, give us some opening remarks about what you've been doing for the last week or week and a half since the Ryder Cup and celebrations and whether you've recovered.

LEE WESTWOOD: I've recovered, been resting and doing some feeding and looking after small babies and small children, a little bit of practicing, not too much, looking forward to this really. It's been a few years since I've been here. 95 was the last time I played, so I'm looking forward to seeing the changes.

RODDY WILLIAMS: You haven't had a chance to go out on the course?

LEE WESTWOOD: No, just got here.

Q. In terms of the importance of this event coming on the back of the Ryder Cup, what has the Ryder Cup done for European players in terms of boosting their confidence or whatever?

LEE WESTWOOD: I think we had the confidence as it was, to be honest. You don't win the Ryder Cup by that many without being confident as a team. I think it's now important for everybody to separate this into -- move it away from the Ryder Cup. The Ryder Cup is gone now. We really enjoyed that, but hopefully we've got it out of our system by now. It's a big tournament as it is. There's not many of these World Golf Championships as it is. After the majors, they're the most important tournaments of the year. It's a good field, minus Phil and Vijay, so it'll be well worth winning, a feather in your cap if you can win this one.

Q. You moved here two years ago, obviously. What does that say about the way you've got your career back together again?

LEE WESTWOOD: Obviously I've started playing a lot better. That's the great thing about these World Championship events. If you don't play well, you don't get in them. It rewards good consistent golf and the players in the World Rankings, and those that aren't playing very well don't get in. It's a bonus towards the end of the season for having a good year.

Q. How did you celebrate the Ryder Cup victory and how long did your celebrations last for?

LEE WESTWOOD: My celebrations were over and done with by Monday when I got home. I celebrated a bit at home, but then just took it easy and relaxed last week.

Q. Did you meet up with your teammates at any stage subsequent to arriving home?

LEE WESTWOOD: No, I think everybody went their own ways. I accompanied Darren on Thursday in London. Lots of the people there obviously wanted to talk about the Ryder Cup, but we didn't do any celebrating as such.

Q. Does that type of thing happen in professional golf?

LEE WESTWOOD: No. Obviously --

Q. You know, like a rugby team goes out --

LEE WESTWOOD: Obviously we all live in different parts of Europe and the world, so it's impossible to do that sort of thing.

Q. Something you miss?

LEE WESTWOOD: No, not really. I think we celebrate enough on Sunday night. Last Sunday we did anyway, most of the team did.

Q. Is it difficult to draw the line on the Ryder Cup and getting back to concentrating on individual events?

LEE WESTWOOD: No, not really. That's why I didn't play last week, so I could let it get out of my system. I didn't want to play last week, certainly in Europe. A couple of guys in America played well, but obviously they weren't coming off the high that the European players were, so it's a little easier to start getting yourself ready for next week. I always struggle to play the following week after the Ryder Cup, and subsequently decided to take it off and get ready for this. I've got three big tournaments coming up, as well, so I felt like I needed to take a week off, since the Ryder Cup always seems to -- you play five games, and I always feel like I need a bit of a rest after that.

Q. Do you agree with the World Ranking system at the moment, as it's set up at the moment?

LEE WESTWOOD: Absolutely. If you play well and you move up quickly. I like the way they take points off gradually now as opposed to big chunks, depending on when you won the points. It depicts perfectly the way the people in the world are playing. It's very difficult to argue with the way people are playing.

Q. It is a pity Monty isn't here this week? Do you think there's leeway for allowing the Ryder Cup team participants here?

LEE WESTWOOD: The Ryder Cup people get entry into the NEC. These championships have always been about being one of the top players in the world. Monty understands that. Obviously he tried very hard to get back into the top 50 in the world, top 20 in the Order of Merit. There are plenty of ways of getting in, and you have to accept if you haven't played consistently well throughout the year then you're not going to be in. I've been that way where I was in a slump and I have no qualms about not getting in a tournament like this. Like Masters, which is top 50 in the world, and the Tournament Players Championship, which is top 50 in the world.

Q. Looking back on your own personal slump, do you look back on it and say why did it go on so long, because once you break out you wonder what the hell was going on?

LEE WESTWOOD: No, because at the time I was playing and trying to find a way of getting out of it. It wasn't like I sat back and accepted it. There's just some things you can't control, but eventually I got out.

Q. What got you out?

LEE WESTWOOD: Just hard work and a change of ideas really. I went and saw David and set out a new plan and started again from scratch.

Q. You basically started over?

LEE WESTWOOD: I was stripping it down anyway, but I just needed somebody's view that I hadn't had for a long time, somebody fresh looking at it.

Q. As you say, Lee, the Ryder Cup is out of the way and the fact is that nobody has won a major since 1999 and Paul Laurie. Do you see a day arriving soon when that situation is going to be rectified?

LEE WESTWOOD: I think so. These things ebb and flow. A few years back they were saying there were no good English golfers coming through, and now all of a sudden we've got five on the Ryder Cup team. These things -- we were very successful as a continent the end of the 80s, beginning of the 90s. We had our fair share of major champions and major victories then, and these things happen in spells and cycles. It just happens that Fiji and South Africa have them all.

Q. Obviously you have players coming through who can do it?

LEE WESTWOOD: We have great European players coming through. You have players who didn't make the team, Justin Rose and Freddie Jacobson, Graeme McDowell, people like that, to see how strong the European Tour is, how strong the younger players on the European Tour are, PGA champion Scott Drummond wasn't on the team. I think it looks pretty healthy at the moment.

Q. What about the more established guys like Lee Westwood, Darren Clarke and so on?

LEE WESTWOOD: They're more or less over the hill, aren't they? Everybody keeps calling me a veteran. It's funny when they're naming all these young players, all these 28-year-olds. I'm only three years older than them. Obviously my game is coming around just as I would want it. Unfortunately all the majors have gone this year. In the short-term I've got several goals, the likes of this week and next week and the match play championship and the Volvo Masters. I'll be getting my practice rounds to start again next year.

Q. You led The Masters with four or five holes to play a few years ago, didn't you?

LEE WESTWOOD: Yes.

Q. When you stood on the 10th tee, you were so nervous you were almost sick or something like that?

LEE WESTWOOD: Yeah, I was fairly nervous.

Q. If and when it comes to that stage again and you are leading at a major with a few holes to play --

LEE WESTWOOD: Hopefully I won't make the same mistakes that I made that time.

Q. Do you recall what the mistakes were?

LEE WESTWOOD: Well, bogeying 10, doubling 11, and bogeying 12 really were not a great run with me leading the tournament. It's hard to come back from that. After that I picked up -- I just didn't have a game plan and stick to the game plan that I got around those three holes, which is where you really should be doing it.

Q. Do you recall what year that was?

LEE WESTWOOD: 99, I think it was.

Q. How would you compare your game now to when you topped the Order of Merit?

LEE WESTWOOD: Tee to green, it's better. Short game and putting, I putted very well that year. Short game was maybe slightly better than it is now, but I haven't worked on it as much as I would like to. I'm going to try to get that up to better than it was in 2000, so I'm quite looking forward to next year.

Then again, everybody's games evolve, I think. You've got to look at Vijay. I think everybody -- like Tiger hit a high standard and then Vijay stepped up and is maybe moving the bar up again.

Q. Just on Vijay, what he has done the last number of months, his absence this week is obviously a blow to the tournament, but what does it say to the other players in the field that he's not here?

LEE WESTWOOD: That it can move on. He's had an incredible run. I've won seven tournaments in a year, but to win -- is it eight tournaments in the States -- is a miracle really. Nobody ever seems to do that. Vijay will be missed this week, but you can understand why; something tore his house apart.

End of FastScripts.

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