PIF SAUDI INTERNATIONAL POWERED BY SOFTBANK INVESTMENT ADVISERS

February 2, 2022

Lee Westwood

Royal Greens Golf and Country Club

Press Conference

THE MODERATOR: Lee Westwood, thank you for joining us on this pre-tournament press conference for this weekend's 2022 Saudi International powered by SoftBank Investment Advisers. You're a bit of a Saudi International veteran now. You've played all three events since 2019. Are you happy to be back?

LEE WESTWOOD: Yeah, delighted to be back. I enjoyed this tournament the first three years I came, and obviously strange this year it's not on the European Tour anymore but it's on the Asian Tour. I've played a lot on the Asian Tour over the last 29 seasons, so yeah, it's obviously a big tournament on the Asian Tour. It's got a high stature, high prize fund. It's exciting what's happening on the Asian Tour. It's good to be part of it and be back.

Q. How pleasing is it for you to see this type of investment in the Asian Tour perhaps away from the markets of the U.S. and Europe?

LEE WESTWOOD: Well, it's a big market, isn't it, Asia, and through the COVID situation, everything has suffered, but the Asian Tour has suffered, as well. But it's nice to see the huge investment in the Asian Tour. Like I say, I've always enjoyed playing in Asia. I've played on the Asian Tour, a lot of friends that play on it, a lot of friends that -- I just bumped into Andrew Pitts outside; I beat him in a playoff for the Macau Open in 1999 and now working for the Asian Tour.

Yeah, I've got long links with this tour, and it's really nice to see him doing well.

Q. You personally, you've had good showings in Abu Dhabi and Dubai in recent weeks. How are you doing heading into this tournament?

LEE WESTWOOD: Yeah, very good. If I can take a few less down the last hole, it'll be even better. I played well in Abu Dhabi. It was my first four rounds -- I played in Houston but missed the cut, so Abu Dhabi was my first four-round tournament since the PGA at Wentworth, and since having COVID at the start of December it's really sort of set me back a little bit. It wasn't able to do any fitness work. I played very little golf in those five, six months or so.

I was pleased with the way I played in Abu Dhabi and then again last week I was pleased with the way I played. Just a couple of unfortunate mishaps up the last hole on Saturday and Sunday, made 8 on Saturday and 9 on Sunday, but other than those, in your own mind you've got to -- as a golfer you've got to be positive and not let just a couple of blips like that detract from what was a good week where I hit the ball really well.

I suppose a lot of people have come away from that tournament thinking they should have won, but I think it's glaringly obvious that I should have finished a bit higher than 32nd tied.

Yes, once again this week, yesterday I hit the ball well. I've got some good feelings in my golf swing. I've managed to work on my golf swing the last (audio interruption).

Q. I just want to ask how committed you are towards Asian Tour and the players given all kinds of negativity that is surrounding this Tour.

LEE WESTWOOD: You mean the investment?

Q. The investment, and the DP World Tour doesn't want to talk to Asian Tour, PGA Tour and DP World Tour doesn't want to give release for players to come and play on the Asian Tour and things like that, the general comments that are being made. As someone who's been associated with this part of the world for so many years and has such nice memories, what are your general thoughts on that?

LEE WESTWOOD: Well, the players of the other tours see the Asian Tour as a threat now, don't they, because of the huge investment. It's kind of like a game of poker really where the European Tour and the PGA Tour have had the biggest hand, and now there's somebody else come to the table with more chips, so everybody is on their guard and very defensive and are clearly seeing the Asian Tour as a threat. Nobody can deny that. There wouldn't have been all this trouble with releases and things like that if that wasn't the case.

Yeah, I can see why they feel threatened, but at the same time, the PGA Tour and the European Tour have gone into areas I suppose in the Asian Tour's path over the years and never had any problem playing tournaments all over Asia and the Middle East, which I think has probably cost Asia, as well.

Now that the Asian Tour has this backing, it appears to me like they're just doing what the PGA Tour and the European Tour have been doing the last 25 years.

Q. Let's leave this tournament aside because of all the politics. If you were asked to or if you were invited to play a tournament in Malaysia or say India, would it be an issue for you or would you just go there and play without any --

LEE WESTWOOD: Yeah, like I said, I've played the Asian Tour for -- I think the first time I played the Malaysian Open was in 1995. I played Japan in '94. So I've been coming out here a long time and playing in these events, and I really don't see why it should stop now. I love playing in this part of the world. I've had a lot of success. A lot of my tournament wins have been on the Asian Tour. You probably tell me what -- yeah, eight of them out of 44. So I've been very successful, and as sports people you like to go where you've been successful. It's kind of comforting to turn up to places that you've won before, and that's how you can build momentum sometimes if you're lacking form or you're missing a win from somewhere. Yeah, I would hope that I can keep coming out to Asia and keep playing, yeah.

Q. Just touching on that, what do you think of the proposed format of the Super League, the team aspect of it? It's a little bit different from the 72-hole stroke play norm.

LEE WESTWOOD: I don't know whether I want to answer questions on that. I've signed an NDA.

Q. Just about the concept really.

LEE WESTWOOD: What is the concept that you --

Q. Just that there's a team aspect to it, not just 72-hole --

LEE WESTWOOD: Well, coming at it from my perspective, you can ask Helen, but when I'm at home I watch a lot of sport but not a lot of that sport is golf because it seems to me it's just 72-hole stroke play week in and week out, and when I'm playing it, I've had enough of it by then. The weeks and days that I would watch I would turn on for the Ryder Cup if I wasn't in it. I would turn on for the Match Play. I think the first day at the Dell Match Play when you've got 32 matches going is one of the most exciting days viewing all year really. I used to love watching the World Match Play at Wentworth. I think team golf every now and again is a good thing. People seem to enjoy watching it.

I think the team aspect is exciting. It's a little bit more volatile than week in, week out 72-hole stroke play.

Yeah, I think people like to pick teams rather than individual now and then. It's different, and I think golf does need different. I think it's pretty similar all over the world wherever you play, they just seem to stick to the 72 holes.

Q. There's the old line that stroke play only gets interesting when it turns into match play.

LEE WESTWOOD: Yeah, the final day, yeah. I wouldn't even -- when I wasn't in the Masters, the only time I watched the Masters was -- when Tiger won in 2019, the only time I watched that was the back nine. I wasn't really interested in days one, two and three, just when it gets going around the final nine holes.

I think golf has got to move with the times and become more heat-of-the-moment, volatile and impactful right from the word go. Certainly if you do it like the team aspect, there's more action happening in more different places, yeah.

Q. Talk about the fourth edition of the tournament; every year, year by year, organizing the tournament it gets bigger and bigger under difficult circumstances as we all know during COVID. How have you seen the organisation and everything that has been done so far?

LEE WESTWOOD: Yeah, the tournament seems to be growing every year. The field gets stronger. The course is certainly better this year than it has been in the past. There's been improvements made all through it.

You know, hopefully -- I think the idea to get lots of world-class professionals here is to further the name and the area around the world and kind of just change the perception of Saudi Arabia. I'm sure tourism is somewhere down the line for Saudi Arabia, and these kind of sporting events, whether it's Formula 1 or the boxing that came here and things like that put Saudi on the world stage, and in turn, that encourages local people to take it up. Hopefully more golf courses will be built, more facilities for local people.

It's a slow process, but you've got to start somewhere.

Q. Just on that, did you have a perception of Saudi that maybe changed when you first came here?

LEE WESTWOOD: I didn't really know what to expect. I had asked a few people, but I was first in Dubai in 1994 when there wasn't a lot going on outside the city there, and once again in Qatar in 1997 I think it was the first tournament there. Very similar. And Saudi is in that kind of situation, just developing infrastructure, and going into the leisure section, I suppose, if you want to call it that, building more golf courses, kind of westernizing itself slightly, and I just expected it to be at that stage, and it is. It's developing.

THE MODERATOR: Thank you very much, Lee. All the best this week.