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BMW PGA CHAMPIONSHIPMay 19, 2010Lee WestwoodVIRGINIA WATER, ENGLAND PAUL SYMES: Thanks for coming in, Lee, appreciate it. Let's just start by getting your feelings on being No. 3 in the World Rankings. LEE WESTWOOD: Obviously delighted. It was a nice surprise Monday morning. I didn't expecting to go three, just to stay a little bit behind Steve, but that's the way World Rankings work out sometimes. It was nice to wake up and find out. I didn't even know, somebody rang me and said he had gone to look; you can imagine who that someone was, my dad. It was nice. Feels a lot better than No. 4. PAUL SYMES: You've played the new course here? LEE WESTWOOD: Yeah, I played yesterday afternoon. Well, I'm in sort of a no-lose situation because I wasn't a massive fan of it before the way it played in May and I didn't seem to do too well. There was only year where I had any chance at all, finishing second. So any changes were going to be good changes for me. And I was impressed with what they have done to most of the golf course. There were a couple of greens that are a bit too severe in my opinion. I might take away a bit of the drama maybe at the end. You know, people wouldn't now have quite such an opportunity to maybe finish eagle, eagle with the greens on 17 and 18. But at the same time, if they toughen the course up as much as that, then, you know, maybe birdie, birdie will count the same as eagle, eagle. I think they certainly putt a lot better with the new grass on the greens. Much more predictable and overall, I would say I'm impressed. Q. Is your dad aware that it was going to change? LEE WESTWOOD: No, he's the one that told me I was going to be just behind Steve. His mathematician skills are obviously on the wane. Q. Hard work to stay there. LEE WESTWOOD: You have to work hard to stay there, even at the top of the World Rankings. I don't really pay too much attention to stuff like that, and I don't really focus on the World Rankings as such. I focus on what I'm doing that week, which is at Wentworth trying to win a tournament I've never won and it's our most prestigious tournament of the year. World Rankings are the last thing on my mind. Q. You don't sit down and do the calculations others seem to be doing about their possibilities for the next few months? LEE WESTWOOD: Possibilities for what? Q. Regarding moving up if the World Rankings? LEE WESTWOOD: Well, you get in those things when you're No. 3 in the world so you don't have to work them out. I don't understand really what you're getting at there. Q. What a win will take you to. Poults and Paul were saying that because of the way Tiger has played the last couple of events, No. 1 looks possible for anyone in the Top-10 if that continues? LEE WESTWOOD: Well, Tiger's performance and schedule and things like that are unpredictable at the moment, aren't they. We have all seen that the last few weeks. Phil is obviously a world-class player and has already won a major this year, but you know, his performances are very much up-and-down, as well. And the World Rankings are all about consistency, so I suppose, yeah, No. 2 and No. 1 are more achievable than they have been in the last few years. Q. You take a lot of positives from your performance at the U.S. Masters with the U.S. Open coming up, as well? LEE WESTWOOD: I thought I played well at the Masters. I obviously I was disappointed not to win but I think 70 on the last round was a decent score. You look back at it in hindsight and there are places where you can pick up shots in certain places. And Phil played well the last day. He made the most of his chances when he had them and when he missed greens, he showed off his short game skills which are the best in the world. He won, I didn't feel like I gave it away. I felt like he won that tournament, certainly the last day there. I'm pretty positive going into the rest of the majors going into the rest of the year, and also the big events. Obviously didn't affect me too much because I came out and was leading the TPC after three days there. So you know, the pleasing thing about the Masters for me was between the PGA last year and the Masters, that was all right to peak at the Masters and I was leading after three rounds, so that shows what state at a professional I can get myself into when I need to. Q. Why have you not perform better here in the past? LEE WESTWOOD: I don't really know. I've never really sort of historically played too well in the first half of the year. And I just have always struggled on the greens here for some reason, which is strange, because you look at greens similar to this, you're looking at the West Coast of America where I've had some of my best results in U.S. Opens and L.A. Opens I've played well. I can never really figure it out, but some courses just don't fit your eye sometimes. Q. And the greens? LEE WESTWOOD: Massive change. I don't think one green is the same. Obviously the grasses are different and it's more firm. It's more predictable, there's not the snaking around that you get on the old poa greens. Q. In terms of peaking for something like the Masters, is that namely a scheduling thing? LEE WESTWOOD: Yeah. I would change my workout routines and stuff like that. It is a lot of scheduling. It's just experience, knowing what's worked in the past and trying to fit it all together and get it right. Chubby said to me when I was on the range the Thursday morning and saw how I was hitting it, he said, "I can't believe you've managed to get to this point since last August and you've managed to tune up and be hitting it this well and be in such good shape." Q. Sometimes less is more, but you say more is more? LEE WESTWOOD: No. I'm not saying more is more, no. I think it's important to go into major championships for me competitive, but still fresh and feeling strong, strong in the right places. I do a lot of working out on certain areas of the body that I feel make me swing better. Q. What did you make of the serious points last night? Did you enjoy the speech? LEE WESTWOOD: I thought the speech was fantastic. A little long, but I think he was spot on with all his words, and he's right. Sponsors have a lot of opportunities or to not go anywhere at all and hang onto their money. We are fortunate to have very loyal sponsors like BMW this week and Barclays who sponsor multiple tournaments, HSBC who do multiple tournaments and have been doing golf for a long time; Dunhill, his company, he mentioned last night, one of the longest sponsors if not the longest. OMEGA do a couple of events. These are companies that are in some of the hardest-hit areas of business at the moment, some of the hardest-hit sectors, and I think we would have to have a very sheltered view as a tour and as professional golfers to think that they were always going to be around forever and always want to stick money into golf and sponsor events and push their name into our tournaments and use our tournaments and The European Tour as a vehicle for promotion. I think it would be daft to just keep presuming that. I think as golfers and a tour, we do have to do more and give them much more value for money, especially with the way things are at the moment. Q. Is your impression that the majority of your colleagues would pretty much ride along with you on that? LEE WESTWOOD: I think last night was unfortunate, because you had a lot of businessmen that understood what he was talking about, and you had a lot of golfers, especially tournament winners that were there, that are more corporately aware and sponsorship aware, than some of the other guys that weren't there, unfortunately. And I think it would be great if we all got together in a room as a tour, all of the Members, to go, and let Johann just talk to us and explain to us from a sponsor's point of view and from a -- I suppose you could call him a golf administrator, as well, with his work, with the South African Tour and just let him explain to us what people require and what they want and what we can give extra. Q. If such a meeting were to take place, would you be there? LEE WESTWOOD: I would go along. I find him interesting because he's a knowledgeable man. I would go along, but I'm very well aware of what to do, because I've been doing it a long time, 17 years. When I first came out, I did a few things that maybe sponsors wouldn't like but I could have done more, and you learn over the years. And especially for me going through a patch where I wasn't playing very well and the money wasn't coming in on the golf course, I learned how valuable sponsors and relationships were through those hard times, as well. So I'm probably a bit more clued in than most people, but it's more players coming fresh out need a bit of education and a bit of schooling, being taught what is expected. Q. What more do they have to do? LEE WESTWOOD: Just little bits here and there. I'm sure we can do a lot more in areas. That's why we all need to sit down and discuss it, because we are going through tough times, and you know, you don't know what's around the corner, do you. Q. How much of a boost was it winning last year's Race to Dubai, and what were your fondest memories from that? LEE WESTWOOD: It was obviously a big boost. It's not something I set out at the start of the year. I more set out to perform well in the majors and individual tournaments. But, you know, when you show the consistency that I showed last year, winning The Race to Dubai becomes more than a possibility. When you get close to that towards the end of the season, you've got a chance and you need to win tournaments to win; in Portugal and the Dubai World Championship when I needed to to win The Race to Dubai. That obviously gave me a lot of satisfaction. Any time you do anything and do it in style, like by winning by six shots under pressure when you need to, is obviously a big confidence boost. Q. Padraig was saying last night that the rest of the players appreciate how much work you've put into get back to this stage. I just wonder, do you feel you've sort of moved up a notch in their eyes, especially after Dubai, and is there a rear-view mirror effect it if your name is on the leaderboard? LEE WESTWOOD: I don't think it's so much a rear-view mirror effect. I would like to think I've always been fairly popular out here. Q. I mean intimidating more than popular. LEE WESTWOOD: You would have to ask them, wouldn't you. It's impossible for me to say. It was nice to hear what they had to say last night. You know, it is a lot of hard work to come back when you've been to kind of the top of the tree, so to speak in the World Rankings, and, then you know, that big come-down and lost form. It's a lot further back than it was the first time around. You don't know the dark side, so you're just full of optimism and looking forward. But when you have a fall like I had, you almost see things coming and know sometimes what's coming around, and it can be harder the second time coming back. That's the most satisfying thing going to three in the world like this week. Q. Was there ever a time when you had fallen outside of the top, one thing that turned you got back in one direction, one shot, one tournament? LEE WESTWOOD: I'm sure there was but it's impossible for me to put my finger on it. I couldn't tell you what it was. It was a combination of a lot of different things. No, I can't put my finger on it. A lot of hard work. Q. Getting back to the speech last night, he was asking for players to show commitment; do you feel like the TPC is considered in America as their fifth, do you feel like this is almost our fifth major? LEE WESTWOOD: Yeah, most certainly, yeah. If you were asking me to list tournament, I would put the majors first and then the World Golf Championships and then THE PLAYERS and then this, because I'm a European Tour player. In my mind, my view, that I'm a European Tour player, so this is the most important tournament to me of the calendar year outside the majors and World Golf Championships. And quite rightly the American players have their PLAYERS Championship or just after the majors or whatever they want to do. So, yeah, it's nice to see a great field here. Most of the guys have turned up, and we'll have a strong event this week. I think everything is pointing in the right direction. The course looks good. The weather looks good. The field is great. It looks a class tournament from whichever angle you look at it. PAUL SYMES: Lee, thanks a lot. End of FastScripts |
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