THE PLAYERS CHAMPIONSHIP

March 14, 2021

Lee Westwood

TPC Sawgrass

Press Conference

THE MODERATOR: It's a pleasure to be joined by Lee Westwood, our runner-up here at THE PLAYERS Championship. It was an up-and-down day. You said earlier you didn't feel like you had your legs under you, but you were still able to battle all the way through. Sum up this week and the day for us.

LEE WESTWOOD: Yeah, the week has been great. I didn't play my best golf today by any stretch of the imagination, but I battled it out. I was proud of myself for that. People question whether I can hole putts under pressure, and I rolled in a lot of must-make putts all day, really, whether it be for par or the great birdie on 14.

Good par putts on 15 and 16 -- I had a three-putt at 17, but it's a tough two-putt up that hill, and then I rolled in one at the last, which is a little bit of justification for sticking with it, even though I probably had my "C" game today, and grinding it out.

Q. You still do all this with a smile on your face and this positive attitude. How much have you enjoyed leaning on that over the past few months or so?

LEE WESTWOOD: Yeah, I'm just having so much fun. Everybody keeps telling my how old I am. I'm 48 in a month's time, and I'm still out here contending for tournaments and playing in final groups with great players like Bryson DeChambeau and Justin Thomas and people like that. It's just a joy to be involved and still playing well and being able to contend.

Q. I was curious what you would take from these last two weeks of just solid play.

LEE WESTWOOD: Oh, yeah, just an unbelievable amount of positives. I've just made -- I didn't play my best today. My legs felt a bit heavy, and I felt a little bit lethargic, like I wasn't swinging as well and I wasn't striking the ball as well, and that was evident from the tee shots off 2, 4, 11 -- I really got away with those. Didn't hit a particularly long one off 16. And this week I've been carrying a 3-iron, and I've got a massive gap between 3-iron and 3-wood, and 3-wood was too much at 16, and 3-iron I knew was going to bring that tree into play.

What do I take from the two weeks? Just a lot of pride. I ground it out today, gave myself a chance, I suppose, at the end. Made some nice birdie putts, nice par putts.

Last week was also very good. You know, these are world-class fields. These are young guys that I'm giving 20, 25 years to most of them, and yeah, I'm still contending. I'm enjoying it. It's a thrill to be out here and still playing well.

Q. I know you said you don't want to compare 2021 Lee Westwood to 2010 Lee Westwood, but do you enjoy the game and being out there now maybe more than you did before?

LEE WESTWOOD: I do, yeah. I do enjoy the game more. I take it for what it is: A game. We're just trying to get a little white ball into a little white hole. It gets treated far too seriously occasionally. With what's going on in the world, it's fun to be doing a job that I love and that I've done for 28 years, and I'm still doing it.

You know, there's no down side, really. I didn't deserve to win today because I didn't hit the ball well enough. You've just got to be -- you've got to have realities in your life, and my life is full of reality, yeah.

Q. I just wonder, as you were making the turn that was right around the time when Justin was starting to get hot, were you noticing that on the board there? Obviously you must have heard the roar at 11 with the eagle, I'm assuming.

LEE WESTWOOD: Yeah, I heard the roar on 11. I didn't know what he'd made, but then I saw the ball and he'd gone from one behind to one in front, I think. Yeah, I'm a bit of a scoreboard watcher, but I saw that he bogeyed 14, and obviously that brought us back on level terms. I just couldn't capitalize and birdie 16, and then I three-putted 17.

I wasn't watching too much going around what everybody was doing. I always like to know where I am, and obviously coming down the last few holes, it's important to know what the situation is. But he obviously played well yesterday, didn't he, with a 64, and obviously played well again today. So yeah, he deserves to win.

Q. You seemed a bit prophetic when you spoke to us last night about how difficult this place is to front-run on.

LEE WESTWOOD: I proved that today, didn't I?

Q. Yeah. Can you kind of expand on that dynamic there because obviously it's a very volatile golf course.

LEE WESTWOOD: People are always in front of you, aren't they? They're always a hole in front or a step ahead. You're always fighting people off or trying to catch people up, and there's a lot of shots out there where it's either really good or it's the end of your tournament.

It is a tough place to front run. It's an even harder place to front run if you haven't got your best game, which I didn't have today. You really need control of your ball and control of your ball flight, and you need to drive it well, which I just didn't.