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VOLVO WORLD MATCH PLAY CHAMPIONSHIPMay 18, 2011Lee WestwoodCASARES, SPAIN STEVE TODD: Lee, welcome. Fantastic field this week, top three in the world, Major Champions, set to be a great competition. LEE WESTWOOD: Well, hopefully, yeah. It's a great field they have got together. So you know, quite right, the title The World Match Play, they should have a good field. STEVE TODD: Impressive record in this event. LEE WESTWOOD: Yeah, I've played well, especially when it was at Wentworth. Obviously it was over 36 holes then, so it was a little bit more predictable. This week, we're 18 holes and you have to come out of the blocks fast and you can't afford to make too many mistakes. But playing the golf course, it's in great condition and the greens are firm nice and true. They will have softened up a bit with this rain, so you know, there will be no easy matches out there and you have to play well again. STEVE TODD: Obviously no easy matches but if you can just reflect on your two first round opponents, Anders and Aaron. LEE WESTWOOD: They have both been playing well recently. Anders, you see him pop up on leaderboards here, there, and everywhere, and Aaron played well last week and he's obviously won already this year in L.A. As is right through the tournament, if you progress far enough, there will be no easy matches, and everybody is quite capable of beating everybody else over 18 holes. Q. Perhaps I should know this, but have you ever won three times in a row, ever in your life? LEE WESTWOOD: I think I have, yes, on The European Tour. I think so. I should know (laughing). I think I won the English Open, the Deutsche Bank and Loch Lomond in 1998. But maybe the U.S. Open right in the middle of that. So that's not three in a row but it's three European Tour events in a row. So if you're counting the U.S. Open, so long ago. Q. The way you pulled off the two wins. LEE WESTWOOD: Yeah, obviously played well the last couple of weeks. Been playing all right all year, but the last two tournaments I've played in, I started to make a few putts, which obviously makes a bit of a difference. Q. Just talk about Luke getting to No. 2, 1 and 2, he said yesterday that England should be proud. LEE WESTWOOD: He's quite right, yeah. It's the first time I think a country has had 1 and 2 in the world other than America, and it just shows you the state of English and British golf right now. We have two Northern Irishmen in the top six, and Paul at 9th, and people like Ian right up there, as well. Golf, or professional golfers that hail from Britain are playing well. Q. If that was the state in tennis, what sort of coverage do you think it would be getting? LEE WESTWOOD: Probably more than golf gets. I don't know the reason for it. Shed any light on that, Mark? Have you thought about it? It could be to do with the quality of golf writers not putting our stories out there (laughter). Q. Did you think this was coming in the last sort of five or six years, did you feel that you were going to reach this stage, where the Europeans are beginning to come on in the World Rankings? LEE WESTWOOD: I think success breeds success, doesn't it. You get one or two people proving that they can do it, then I think this brings on everybody else. It wasn't so long ago, it ten or 11 years ago that somebody was complaining that there was only one person in the top hundred in the World Rankings, and now we're being criticised because we don't win big enough events. It's quite ironic, really, how times change, isn't it. Q. Luke and Paul would say that they were products of the English amateur system. You wouldn't say that, would you, because you played once for England but you weren't one of the in boys were you in the amateur scene? LEE WESTWOOD: Well I captained the boys on the youth team. Q. They didn't put you in Walker Cups and things? LEE WESTWOOD: No. Q. So answer my question. (Laughter) LEE WESTWOOD: I didn't know you had asked one. (Laughter) you were just stating facts, weren't you? Q. I was saying, were you part of the in group? LEE WESTWOOD: Yeah, I said I was England Boys Captain and Youths Captain, so I would have to say I was. They came through a slightly different system. It's something that's moved on over the years, and English golf, they've learned over the years where they can improve their support structure and coaching and things like that. When I was part of the England squad, we came to Valderrama in March for a week every year, which was great fun. But now you look at the Amateurs that are coming through, they go and travel all over the world really, supported by the English Golf Union. And then I think that's probably the reason why the Amateur that is come out now, feel more comfortable playing in these big events and feel more comfortable travelling around the world to play in these big events because they have had experiences as amateurs doing it regularly whereas we didn't. It took us a couple of years to come out here and settle in. Q. Certain commentators had a go at you last week. Were you expecting that, or did you find it all fairly predictable, what some of the Americans were saying, and you didn't want to dignify it with a response? LEE WESTWOOD: I tend to -- things that bother me come from people that I'm bothered about. So if my dad or if Chubby or somebody close to me or one of my friends, my caddie or my wife criticise me for not going there or for not doing something, then that would bother me. But I have no time for being bothered about what stuff that people say that I'm not bothered about. Why let that worry you? They are not people that concern me. Q. Did you hear anything that you felt, that's a bit rich, like you don't agree with that, like when Johnny Miller said that people like you should say thank you to America? LEE WESTWOOD: Johnny's entitled to his opinion, isn't he. Q. I'm sure you've expressed your opinions. LEE WESTWOOD: I've actually never expressed my opinions to Johnny, no. I'm sure we'll have an interesting conversation the next time we meet. Q. Just off the course, you said something about your golf school, and I understand there's going to be one down south, as well. LEE WESTWOOD: Yeah, it's very exciting. We have got the one in Cheshire that's doing very well. All of the lads seem to be coming on well and enjoying it and we are looking at a site in the south, starting a school there. And you know, there are others, other people around the world that are keen, as well on the concept. So that's a very exciting sort of off-course thing for me when I'm not playing golf. It's nice to put something back into golf, and something that I'm obviously close to and interested in is junior golf, so it's nice to sort of help in any way that you can in that regard. Q. Have there been any conversations about, with English players doing so well, about getting more tournaments in England? LEE WESTWOOD: Yeah, I was asked about that yesterday, the State of English golf and British golf, it is a bit disappointing that we have only got one tournament in England, if you don't count The Open, which moves around and happens to be in England this year. It's disappointing that we have only got one tournament. But I can understand that, with a view to the financial climate around the world. Q. Can you be proactive in that in trying to change that, the group of you? LEE WESTWOOD: Other than saying -- as you see my schedule for years gone by, whenever there's been in a tournament in England, I've always participated in that tournament. I can only support them really as much as I have done in the past. It's not like I haven't supported the tournaments when they have been in England. So I continue to do that for, as long as the schedule allowed. Whenever the British Masters has been played, I've played. English Opens I've been played; when tournaments were at Slaley. I would love to see three or four tournaments back on the schedule in England. But I know how big of a deal it is to find sponsorship and new sponsors; at the moment, nobody's got spare cash, obviously. Q. How much have you played with Luke, starting with The Ryder Cup -- what did you think of him there and have you played with him much since? LEE WESTWOOD: I may have but I don't think I've played with him since. Q. So what did you think of his game there? LEE WESTWOOD: It was as I expected, very reliable. He hits the ball very straight off the tees. Iron play is good and he's got a great short game and he's a nice putter. You don't get to No. 2 in the world without having a lot of strength and very few weaknesses. Q. But improved in every area? LEE WESTWOOD: Well, if you are going to move up the World Rankings from wherever, make a significant move as he has done over the last year or so, and shown the consistency that he's shown, you know, you have to have improved in every little area by a small percentage. You don't have a glaring weakness when you're that kind of level of golfer and just improve one; you have to improve everything a slight bit. At the end of the week it could be a two shots different and that could be the difference between from having a 15th place finish or a 6th place finish, or a 6th place finish and being in a playoff. Q. Would you expect record crowds next week with the one tournament in England given the State of English golf? LEE WESTWOOD: Hopefully we'll have a typically balmy British spring/summer. Everybody will be in tee shirts and there will be 100,000 people there. But yeah, you know, next week's going to be one of the strongest and best fields that I think the PGA Championship has ever had. So if that doesn't get them out, nothing will. Q. What do you make of the new Wentworth? LEE WESTWOOD: Well, I haven't seen it, the new, new Wentworth yet. I think it's fairly well documented what I said last year. And they have changed the two things that I said needed changing. So if they have changed them as I think they have changed them, then I would have to say that I like it, having not seen it. But I felt the changes were good that Ernie did. He was given a job to make it harder and he made it harder. It looks right for the place that it is. He's made it sort of fit into the -- the redesign fit into the place. The only place that needed changing -- well, the only two places that needed changing were the 8th green and the 18th green. I think they have made them a little more subtle. There will be more pin placements on 8, less severe. And 18, it will encourage you to go for it in two, which I don't think anybody turns up to Wentworth to watch people hit 5-wood, 8-iron, sand iron to the last. They like to see people going at the green with 4-iron or 5-iron or 5-wood, and having a chance for eagle to catch up. Q. Did you like the hole as it was? LEE WESTWOOD: Which one? Q. 18. LEE WESTWOOD: If the green is subtle and a bit bigger target, I would prefer it more now. I think you used to be able to bash it down the fairway there, be in the rough and if you could carve it around the corner, you could hit the tent on the left and get a drop there and just have a simple little pitch up the green, which was too much of a bail-out zone. Now it gets you twitching, which the 18th hole should do. Q. Slightly different subject. Can you pinpoint a thing or two, if you will, experiences with Seve, just what you learned? LEE WESTWOOD: Just from watching him on TV and more I suppose relating to this week, the way he played match play. Never gave anything away; the fight he showed. He was never really out of a hole. Even if he was in the worst lie and the worst spot, you always thought he had a chance of getting the ball up-and-down. That kind of flair is always going to be difficult to play in match play, and that's probably why he was so successful in this tournament. But it was his short game that stood out I think, and some of the miraculous shots he played, because he had a lot of imagination, obviously, and feel. Q. You were quite young when you were world No. 1 in Europe, and then -- LEE WESTWOOD: What do you mean, "quite young?" I'm quite young now. (Laughter). Q. No, no. Just listen to the question (laughter). LEE WESTWOOD: Sorry. Impetuousness of youth. Q. Then you dropped quite drastically in the rankings and you came back. When you were so down, what inspired you to come back in the first place, and now you're the No. 1, did you ever envisage that you could reach this No. 1 spot at that time? LEE WESTWOOD: The thing that drives you on is knowing it's very frustrating, you know how good you were, and know how good you're capable of being and playing. So that was the most frustrating, and that probably drove me on just to prove to everybody that I could still play. And I don't think, I don't think you have sort of -- certainly at that time, Tiger was far and away the best player in the world so you don't think you can get back to -- you don't set a standard. When you're playing that poorly, you don't set standards that high. You need to set goals that area attainable. Otherwise you're like the hamster going around the wheel, never getting anywhere. You want things that you can achieve that will give you confidence to move on. I set little goals all the way along. There was never an ultimate goal to get to. Q. But was it never in your head to be No. 1? LEE WESTWOOD: There was never an ultimate goal to get to. There's not a lot in my head to be honest (laughing). Just I suppose the ultimate goal was to get back to playing the kind of golf that I played previously, which got me to No. 4 in the world, which at the time people would have probably said, you're not going to get back to that. STEVE TODD: Thanks for joining us, Lee. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports |
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