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THE BARCLAYS SCOTTISH OPENJuly 11, 2009Lee WestwoodLUSS, SCOTLAND SCOTT CROCKETT: Congratulations, Lee, after a week that started badly with you not feeling well, it is turning out pretty good for you. LEE WESTWOOD: Just goes to show I'm a man who needs his sleep. 3-over after two holes on the first morning and feeling pretty dreadful and not having any sleep at all the night before, I was almost thinking of walking off. But Dave said no, just keep grinding in there and see what happens, and that's what we've done. A couple of good rounds to follow that up, hung on with a 73 on the Thursday and played like I played the last round last week. SCOTT CROCKETT: When we spoke to you yesterday, 66 was scant reward for the way you played but it seems you certainly took advantage of your chances today? LEE WESTWOOD: Just ask my playing partners or the caddies that watched it yesterday, it could have been 61 or 62 quite easily. Today I was thinking about 59 on the 13th tee. SCOTT CROCKETT: Not surprising because you've holing everything. LEE WESTWOOD: Didn't need to, kept hitting it close, three, four feet all day really. The longest putt I holed was about 15 feet on 4 and 15 feet on 12 out of those nine birdies. Just the sort of golf I've been playing tee-to-green. Q. Can you recall probably best chance at 59 so far? LEE WESTWOOD: I've had chances so far, but I can't remember them as well, just that. Even with the bogey on 5, nine birdies in the first 12 holes, and just staring the flag down really and two great birdie chances to come. Just unfortunate, had to wait on 13 tee, felt like I had to wait about ten minutes there, and then had to wait for another ten minutes on the next tee. Those short of things just break your rhythm occasionally, especially when you are playing those kind of holes, very risk/reward holes. But then I got a lovely 3-wood off 15 and a 9-iron to about eight feet and missed that, and played last three holes very solidly, as well. Q. Can you play better than that, and has it ever felt as good as that out there? LEE WESTWOOD: I'm sure you can play better than that, yeah, but you know, there would be no point in practising if you didn't think you could improve. I was really happy with the way I played today. All departments of my game feel good. Q. Did it feel as good as last Sunday at the French Open? LEE WESTWOOD: Yeah, it's a little bit different when you're playing the last round, different kind of pressure on. When you're playing the third round, you're pretty much free-wheeling. I'm not going to say it was any better or any worse than the last round last week because that was good stuff, as well; I was 7-under through 13 holes there. Q. Could you just talk us through your health progress this week? LEE WESTWOOD: It's great now, thank you; antibiotics. I said the first day, it wasn't the chest infection that was sort of holding me back. I was obviously in some discomfort, but the fact that it kept me awake the night before, and I had only had four hours' sleep the night before that. So you have four hours' sleep in three days, you're not going to feel like playing golf. And it just felt like somebody else's head on my shoulders and felt like I was dizzy and my eyes were sort of -- couldn't focus and it was just awkward. Felt almost like I was hung over, if any of you have ever been hung over. (Laughter). Q. When did you get some rest? LEE WESTWOOD: Well, I went home from here and slept three hours that afternoon and went out and had to do something and got back at 9.30, and slept right through to 9.30; so 15 hours between rounds was just what I needed. I feel fine now. Obviously still have a bit of a bad chest but it's not making me feel ill. I take it back to having the tonsils out last November. I would have had tonsillitis ordinarily getting something like that, but when you take your tonsils out, it just goes to your chest instead. I spoke to Ian Poulter and he had the same thing, and he gets more chest infections than he used to, just a type of defense. Q. On the West Coast of Scotland and Turnberry looks like a course that would suit -- LEE WESTWOOD: I played it on Tuesday and I had only ever played there once before. I had been there before with Andrew Coltart and played on a lovely day with hardly any breeze, so didn't give me feel for what the course was like. There was a nice breeze blowing around the front nine and it wasn't opposite direction that it normally blows, wasn't the prevailing wind, but it's about as perfect as a setup as you're ever going to get on a links course. And it's been close to six months, they put some new tees in I believe, that made some holes play tougher. They moved the 16th further left, so that now plays difficult towards the end of the round. It's going to be a good course for a long, straight driver. But like every major, every facet of your game has got to be on form. But I like what I saw from what I saw last Tuesday. Q. You kind of answered the question a minute ago after delays on 13 and 14 but curious on the details of the shot, how did you play the 13th? LEE WESTWOOD: I just got the wind turning a bit on me. I thought it was down out of the right and it just came into out of right on me at that stage and I didn't quite carry the trap down the right-hand side, so I had to lay up there. And then on 14, I just stood around for a long time and it was playing straight into the wind. I was trying to hit a hard cut and just hit it dead straight and pitched it about flag-high in the hazard left. Those kind of holes are very much risk and reward holes. Q. As well as you've been swinging it, when did this start; France? LEE WESTWOOD: Well, I've been playing well for a while. I played very well at the U.S. Open. Just got on the wrong end of the draw. I shot 66 the second round there to get into it. I've been playing pretty good all year. I had chances. I got into contention in the last round in Australia when I played the Johnnie Walker down there and didn't finish it off. And end of last year on this year's Order of Merit, I had a great chance at the South African Open and really feel like I let one go there. It's just been a gradual improvement. But Billy gave me a tip on the putting green last Saturday evening in France to move the ball back in my stance a little bit, and I'm getting a more consistent strike on it. That's the main reason why I've started scoring a little better. I've been playing like this tee-to-green but not finishing it off from inside 15 feet which you have to do, scoring putts. Q. Did you have any advice for Billy? LEE WESTWOOD: Yeah, don't take any short cuts on his walk. I'll tell you a funny story if you want, he's walking obviously from here to Turnberry and he was heading towards Irvine Bogside Golf Club and he saw it in the distance and he decided to cut through this corn field, and to cut within this court field he got within 15 yards of the Bogside and suddenly realised why it's called Irvine Bogside, because between him and the golf club was a bog about half a mile, up and down, and found the narrowest bit and decided to charge for it. I can imagine it now, just finding a golf bag lying down on the side of the green. Q. Third day of the Open last year, you had a bit of the rant about all of the media attention. LEE WESTWOOD: Tough week. Q. What exactly happened to annoy you? LEE WESTWOOD: No, it's just an intense week. The demands on your time are very great. If you can just go in there and not have to do anything, not have to talk to anybody, it would be a massive result. But unfortunately it's The Open Championship and I'm British and I'm not the sort that's not going to talk to you. Q. You said you were close to walking off on Thursday, have you ever walked out of a golf tournament because of ill health, and how much did they have to talk you out of it? LEE WESTWOOD: I'm sure I have. A few times; I was in contention in the Malaysian Open about seven years ago and had to pull out after two. I was 10-under and one off the lead. These things happen every now and again in all sports really. It just unfortunate when it does. I would have felt a little bit guilty walking off on Dave, he's filling in and it's nice of him to do it. I didn't ask had him to turn up until Wednesday. So he did say when we finished on Thursday that he was very pleased he wasn't being paid by the hour. Q. Most of your career you have been a very good closer but you haven't for a while now, any thoughts about that? Less than flippant thoughts obviously. LEE WESTWOOD: I've done all there is to close out tournaments. Last week I felt like I got a bit unlucky, played some great golf and thought the four pars on the last four holes, I honestly thought when I finished, that I got a better than 80 percent chance of winning really, they were playing pretty tough, but you know, playoffs are like that, they can be very small margins. Great chance in the British Masters last year. So, you know, sometimes you win, sometimes you don't. Look at Padraig a few years ago. He was finishing second, and all of a sudden a few great scores and he's a three-time major champion. You just have to keep getting yourself in the positions and plugging away. It's a very fine line between winning tournaments and losing in playoffs. Q. You haven't sort of talked to anybody about it? LEE WESTWOOD: That's all you can do. I'm still thinking clearly, getting out there, playing the right shots. I think it will all start turning around about now, because I was getting too aggressive, almost wanting to finish it off too easily and too quickly. When I was winning the end of last century, I would just hang around and let it happen and let people fall away, and all of a sudden I won by a shot or two shots just doing that. And sometimes you get the perception in your mind that you're doing more than that, look, I shot 64 that time and ran away with it or shot 65 and won by four. That's not really happened. That occasionally happens but more often than not, I hung around at the top of the leaderboard and let other people make mistakes. I've been making a conscious effort recently of being a bit more conservative, hanging around and seeing what happens and come close a couple of times. Q. Monty was in the other day saying that players peak 37; do you feel like you're still up to peak and this phase could be even better than the one at the end of the last century? LEE WESTWOOD: I think it could be an experience thing. I've seen both sides of the coin, really. I've been top four in the world and free-wheeled really, and also had to grind it out and wonder where the next good score is coming from. I think I've probably had more experiences than most people out here and I would agree with him and hope that people do peak at 36 or 37. I hope he's right. Q. Just trying to figure out what would be the best way, if you were an American, to come over and get ready for the British. I wonder what you found works for you for the three U.S. majors, I think you play Houston, don't you? LEE WESTWOOD: I have played Houston. Q. Have you done all three in terms of going over early, or what do you think is the best way to go about it? LEE WESTWOOD: If I was an American player playing the British Open, I would come over and play France and take a week off and play take a week off and play some links golf and relax and play The Open Championship. France is a great golf course. Almost plays links-like. They get it very firm and hard and there's a few holes there where you can run it in. It's a very tight golf course and demanding on the tee shots and similar sort of rough if you miss the fairways. And then I think probably looking at the way Padraig prepares, by playing the Irish PGA Championship, it's obviously nice to play links golf in the run-up to the Open, maybe play -- maybe go and play The Open Championship venue on the Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday of the week previous, but then get away from it all. And if you don't want to be there too early and play some other links golf somewhere else, just to get a feel for pitching it short of the green or driving some shots in low, getting used to playing in a 20-, 30-mile-an-hour wind, putting in that kind of wind, and then you can turn up to The Open fresh and be in the right state of mind to play links golf. But I love playing here and I played France last week, because I love playing France and I feel it is a pretty good warm-up for links golf, and I love playing here. I would like it more if there was a links tournament the week before The Open, and this was another date, maybe the week after The Open or something like that, but I would never not play this, it's my favourite inland course in Britain and I've always been successful here. SCOTT CROCKETT: Thank you very much, Lee, good luck tomorrow. End of FastScripts |
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