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COMMERCIALBANK QATAR MASTERS PRESENTED BY DOLPHIN ENERGY

January 22, 2009

Lee Westwood

DOHA, QATAR

RODDY WILLIAMS: Well played, terrific star for the first round of the year, you must be pleased to have the first round under your belt.
LEE WESTWOOD: Yeah, I'm delighted. I have not practiced a lot in the time over Christmas, three or four weeks, I guess it was. I didn't really know what to expect but I was doing a lot of gym work in the 3 1/2 weeks and that sort of keeps me -- I don't get as rusty as I used to when I take time off.
Today I had a new PING Rapture V2 driver in and a new set of S57 irons and new putter, new wedges. All in all, really good.
Started off really well with a good drive down 10 and didn't make birdie, hit it on to the front in two, and had a couple more chances. After six holes, I thought it was going to be one of those slow starts to the year where I'm a bit rusty, but it all came good in the end.
RODDY WILLIAMS: Obviously you adjusted to the new clubs pretty well. Do you always find it easy to adjust to a new set?
LEE WESTWOOD: I've been practicing with them a little bit, as far back as August last year, hitting a few balls and getting a feel. But there's no substitute for actually playing a competitive round.
So that was my first competitive round today. I'm quite pleased. Hit a couple of poor iron shots but the old set has more cavity-back and these are more blade-back, and they are a little bit better out of the rough, as well.

Q. What made you decide to change; isn't that a gamble?
LEE WESTWOOD: It's not really a gamble. I've been with PING for 20-odd years now, since I was 15 years old, and I know they make good equipment. I know they make good equipment and I've never had any problems changing. I've changed putters and I've changed driver once or twice. I'm particularly impressed with this driver when I started using it.

Q. Which putter?
LEE WESTWOOD: I use more of a blade-type putter. It's quite heavy. As soon as I picked it up, it sat nice on the ground and felt nice in my hand and started to roll the ball pretty good.
I've been using them at home on the carpet, so they all felt comfortable. So depending on the greens, I was going to use one of those.

Q. Can you go through your birdies?
LEE WESTWOOD: I hit driver, 3-iron on 10, just off the front edge and played a poor chip and then I missed from 12 feet.
And then a couple of regulation pars on the next and hit 4-iron to about four feet on the par 3. I missed that.
I missed from about 12 feet on the next. I missed a decent chance on 15 and just short of green on 16 and hit a nice chip to three feet and knocked that in.
Holed from about 20 feet on 18 for birdie and that was the longest putt I holed all day.
Then parred around to 4, a couple of good up-and-downs in there, or one good up-and-down on 3. And then hit a sand iron to five feet on 4.
Par 5, hit a good 8-iron, good drive down six, good 8-iron to 12 feet and rolled that one in.
Good drive and hit a wedge to about four feet and made that.
Then I made a nice putt on the last up against one of those really roughy things.
RODDY WILLIAMS: You're off to a good start in a tournament that's extremely strong, in terms of World Rankings, strongest field we've had in a regular event.
LEE WESTWOOD: I was feeling a bit stale, and on 16 I looked at the leaderboard and was at level par and playing with Goosen, and he's at 3-under. And I expected to come out a bit quicker than that.
Just patience was the key. I figured if I didn't birdie 16 and 18, I was going to be a long way down. So there were two good birdies there and played the back nine solid and didn't make any bogeys. If you don't make any bogeys, chances are you're going to shoot a good round.

Q. You put in a lot of training last winter - are you doing more of that or something different?
LEE WESTWOOD: Yeah, we tried to sort of kick on from there and move on. I'm doing a lot more strength now, lifting a lot more had heavier weight and doing a lot of flexibility exercises with the weights and trying to get a much bigger range. And I've lost a bit of weight -- well, I haven't lost weight. I've lost inches around the weight and kept the same weight. My waste is about a 34 now but still 96 kilos.

Q. Did the number of near misses last year takes its toll?
LEE WESTWOOD: Not really, no. In contention every week I teed it up, so gives me confidence to take it out to the first tee on every tournament.

Q. But you would want to win this week to end the run?
LEE WESTWOOD: Yeah, I'd like to win as soon as possible, but I'm not putting any pressure on myself. I played great all last year, and seems like I've come out and carried on with the same vein of form this year. I felt unlucky a few times not to win tournaments. Sometimes the luck didn't go your way, you don't get the breaks; you don't get up-and-down on a green as you should do, and that can be the difference between losing a tournament and winning it.

Q. How much did the tonsillitis affect you last year?
LEE WESTWOOD: Yes, there were a couple of Sundays last year and a couple of chances were unfortunate that affected me, at Gleneagles and I had to pull out of the OMEGA European Masters the week after when I committed to play.
So there were three or four times last year when it affected me. It won't be affecting me anymore.

Q. What do you think of the course?
LEE WESTWOOD: I think the course is excellent. It's in great condition. Better than last year, but I know the reasons why the course wasn't in great condition last year, because of the lack of water in the preceding months.
It's set up just the way I think we'd all like it. If you miss a fairway, you get penalised, which you should do. The greens are true. The putts will go in if they are on line, and the greens, they don't spike up.
If it carries on blowing at the strength it's supposed to blow this week, 15 to 20 miles an hour, it will provide a stiff test. Obviously if the wind drops, people can do to it what Adam Scott did last year with a 61. But with some wind around here, it can be a demanding test of golf.
RODDY WILLIAMS: Lee, thank you very much.

End of FastScripts

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