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THE PLAYERS CHAMPIONSHIPMay 11, 2017Lee WestwoodPonte Vedra Beach, Florida Q. You had a pretty good start today, 2-under in the first round of THE PLAYERS, a couple birdies on the opening nine on the par-5s, pars the rest of the way. Give us a little scope of your round. LEE WESTWOOD: Yeah, it was good. I can't recall having many bogey-free rounds around this golf course. It's playing tricky. It's firm. Greens are firm. You don't have to get out of position very much to have a tough up-and-down for par or things like that. Yeah, delighted with the way I started. I've had four weeks off before this tournament, been off since the Masters, and felt a little bit rusty, but it was a bit of a surprise to see my short game on point and so sharp, yeah. Q. You're 53 in the world; when did you find out you were going to get in? LEE WESTWOOD: Well, it was on and off and on and off for various reasons, but sort of last Tuesday when I got to Las Vegas to do my preparation for this tournament, in style. Q. You seem to be making the most of it. LEE WESTWOOD: Yeah, the older I get, the less practice I'm doing, and the less I seem to be able to come back and be fairly competitive. I have a few weeks off. The rest probably does me good probably more than standing on the range bashing balls and wearing my body down. Q. Do you feel like there's a tendency to overlook guys who are playing solid for months and months but just don't win golf tournaments? LEE WESTWOOD: No, I don't think so. I think people that win golf tournaments get all the recognition and are at the top of the leaderboards. Dustin has won a lot and quite rightly he's at the top of the World Rankings. They're the guys that get the headlines. Q. Do you think the change of conditions will be a factor? LEE WESTWOOD: Normally it is. Normally you want to score in your morning round and then the golf course just gets progressively harder as the day goes on. It firms out and a bit of wind picks up. Generally you want to shoot a good score in the morning when you get your morning time over the first 36, yeah. Q. Do you have a game plan for playing the 12th hole? Does it depend on the wind? LEE WESTWOOD: I've pretty much decided that I'm going to lay up every day. I just see it like that. I'm not driving the ball particularly well, so that would be stupid to go for that, so I'm just going to treat it with a lot of respect and try and use my wedge game. Just have four putts from inside 15 feet, 18 feet for the week. Q. If you played it in 2-under -- LEE WESTWOOD: I'd be delighted with that, yeah. Q. Your short game is sharp? LEE WESTWOOD: Really sharp, yeah. Obviously I work really hard on that part of my game because you obviously need a sharp short game, especially on a golf course like this. This is set up sort of in a major championship style, very firm, greens are very quick. You know, you need to be good around the greens. Q. This suits you, doesn't it. LEE WESTWOOD: Yeah, I'd like it to keep playing like this, no doubt about it. I like the fact that there's a premium on hitting fairways in this tournament. I think that's what makes it a great championship, the fact that you can't bash it everywhere and you've got to have control of your golf ball over every aspect of the game. Q. When they were talking about the extension of the FedExCup sponsorship, the fact that there's some players on TOUR that actually represent a competitor came up. Have you ever felt any kind of awkwardness, or do you see any possible awkwardness if one day you're holding up the FedExCup Championship trophy? LEE WESTWOOD: Well, being sponsored by UPS, it wouldn't be awkward for me to hold that up. I would imagine it would be awkward for other people, but having won in Memphis, being a UPS player in FedEx's backyard, I've already sort of stoked the fire a little bit there. Q. Was it at all weird? LEE WESTWOOD: Not at all, no. It was great. Just a shame when you got a jacket for winning and you had to cover it up, although the jacket didn't stay on for too long. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports   |
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