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VOLVO WORLD MATCH PLAY CHAMPIONSHIP

May 19, 2011

Lee Westwood

CASARES, SPAIN

MARÃA ACACIA: Okay, Lee, great start today.
LEE WESTWOOD: Thank you.
MARÃA ACACIA: How do you feel?
LEE WESTWOOD: Well, I'm obviously pleased to win my first round match. I didn't think it was going to be an easy game against Anders, because you know, he's been playing very well just recently. And he historically plays well this time of the year. He's won the PGA Championship, which is next week, and you tend to find that players play well during certain spells during the year. So I had to be on my guard today.
I got off to a slowish start. I bogeyed the first, but then I birdied 4, 5, 6, 8, 9, 11, which obviously was a good run and was always going to be tough to hold off.

Q. Was there one particular shot that sparked that run?
LEE WESTWOOD: I hit it close all through that run. Nice 3-wood into 4 to about 20 feet and we halved that in birdies and then I hit driver, 3-wood to about 18 feet on the next and birdied that to go 1-up and then hit 3-iron to about a foot on 6. So that was to go 2-up and then just fed off that confidence.

Q. Feeling the benefits of not playing last week and feeling fresh?
LEE WESTWOOD: Yeah, I feel fresh, feel good coming into this week. It's a tough week, quite demanding.
Obviously being the No. 1 seed in that bracket, I don't have to play two rounds in one day until hopefully the weekend and that's a bit of an advantage. And we buggy from certain places on the golf course. That's obviously very helpful.
But yeah, I had had such a busy time the first part of the year, that I was going to need a break at some stage to just sit down and do nothing, really, and recharge.

Q. With that in mind, is it good to continue the form you showed in Korea and Indonesia?
LEE WESTWOOD: Well, I didn't just sit down and do nothing the last two weeks. I was hitting balls and working on a few things. So hopefully the stuff I've been doing at home on the gym and on the range will start to pay dividends from now on.

Q. Is that three wins in a row?
LEE WESTWOOD: Does it count? No, I would like to obviously play the same as I played today, tomorrow. I played nicely.
It's quite tricky out there with the wind.
MARÃA ACACIA: Was it too windy at times?
LEE WESTWOOD: Not at all. It was just a nice breeze out there. You had to have control of the ball.

Q. The periods where you've had this great run of consistency over the last 18 months, do you feel like you're now back in that sort of groove?
LEE WESTWOOD: Well, I like to show the consistency, but I would like to start finishing off tournaments like I did ten years ago.
If you get on a winning run where you are in contention a lot and finishing it off, that obviously works wonders for your confidence and you start to get that habit of winning again rather than being in contention and racking up the Top-10s like I was doing. It's nice to convert the Top-10s into wins regularly.

Q. Does there come a point in a run like this where you start to feel a certain invincibility, like six birdies in eight holes today and then a chance at three straight wins?
LEE WESTWOOD: No. You know, I've seen enough up-and-downs in golf to know that you don't sort of take good play for granted. You have to constantly work at it.
But no, if you play as well as I played today, a lot of good shots, then you obviously allow that to affect your confidence and build it up.

Q. Do you ever feel anything in the leg --
LEE WESTWOOD: I occasionally feel it. I didn't feel it today. I felt it after Korea a couple of weeks ago. Leg just swells up a little bit. But just like any injury, if you had had an injury and you are unfortunately 38 years of age, you don't shake them off as easily. And they do hang around and linger around.
It's just one of those things that I have to maintain all the time. I do a lot of work on it in the gym. It's built into the programmes that I do. So I try to stick to that and hopefully that will keep any injury away.

Q. Stamina will be key here, won't it, because the first one to get to the final will be playing 72 holes.
LEE WESTWOOD: Yeah, obviously, and it is an advantage to have won 6 & 5, and the less holes you can play are obviously going to play dividends down the road and down the tournament.

Q. How many buggy rides are there?
LEE WESTWOOD: Out there? Not enough. (Laughter).
There are a good few but you need them, really.

Q. Three to four?
LEE WESTWOOD: Putting green to the first is a nice ride to start off with. Get us in the manner we are accustomed to.

Q. How close are you to getting back to that winning feeling you had ten years ago?
LEE WESTWOOD: Yeah, I started to feel it again in Korea, yeah. That habit of just really being patient and lingering around and sort of sticking your chin out at the right time when the line is coming, rather than hitting the front too early and being too aggressive at certain times, I just hung around in Korea.
I didn't do anything too spectacular and then played good, solid, sometimes conservative golf the last round there and 67 was the lowest round of the day and good enough to win. Gave me a lot of satisfaction. It was I thought a professional performance.

Q. Going back to the stamina thing, obviously you've made a decision at some point to get yourself fit, which you've done considerably well, at what point did you decide that that could help -- I'm sure it wasn't Gary Player telling you, was it?
LEE WESTWOOD: No. If it was Gary Player, I'd have done it years earlier.
You get to a point in your career where you look for places that you can gain an advantage or make up for the places where you can improve. And obviously my fitness, I wasn't as strong as I ought to have been, so I needed to work on that. And Steve MacGregor has helped me a lot with that.

Q. How long ago was it that you got into it?
LEE WESTWOOD: About four years now I think, yeah. I'm a lot more powerful. I wouldn't say I'm a svelte marathon runner, but I'm fit for golf. You know, I can play 36 holes in a day and I'm powerful in all the right areas.

Q. Do you regret that you left it so long in your career relatively, or do you feel that your game was okay so it didn't really matter at that point?
LEE WESTWOOD: No, if I could have another go again, I'd start working out before I got on Tour, 17, 18 years of age, put a programme in place. Not too serious at that age, but certainly building up certain areas. Because you do such a one-dimensional swing, one-dimensional movement that you wear one side of your body and the other side is not getting the same exercise.
And I think you see it a lot now. The kids come -- when I was a lad, I played every sport: Football, rugby, cricket, the lot; ran, swam. So I didn't start playing golf until I was 13.
So I built up a core sort of early-age strength that my body was pretty strong. I was quite a fit athlete. And then I started playing golf at the age of 13 and that progressed from there.
And you see kids that come out now and they speak about golfing at four or five years of age, by the time they turn pro at 20 or whatever, they have been doing the same movement, never built up that core strength. So they are starting to get bad backs too early in their careers, really, just because of that. You're a victim of that circumstance.
So you know, I would definitely have in hindsight start working out as soon as I started playing full-time golf.

Q. And was there a sense, do you think that you were a victim of your own success in that you were so successful --
LEE WESTWOOD: Well, they do say if it's not broke, don't change it, don't they. And I don't how many times I'd won, you can probably tell me, by the end of 2000, something like 25 times. It's very difficult to change that.
But you know, fitness is obviously something that you take for granted a little bit when you're younger, as well. You get up and spring out of bed and you're ready for action. And when you get into your mid 30s, you get out of bed, and you're, oh, what's that.

Q. Or 50.
LEE WESTWOOD: That's why I'm doing it now so I can move when I'm 50. Because hopefully I've got quite a few more years ahead of me and this is going to prolong my competitive career.

Q. Was there one event where your physical condition really let you down?
LEE WESTWOOD: Not really, no, but I obviously wasn't as strong and as fit as I could have been. When you're talking about fine parameters of improving and getting to the top of the game, then you have to explore everything and try and tick off every box and go through the game, long game, iron play, short game, pitching, and you tick off all those.
And sooner or later, you've got to tick off the, well,-am-I-fit-enough-box. Am I fit enough to not only play golf, but am I fit enough when I'm working on things that my muscles are receptive enough to make the changes that I want to change and get into the positions that I want to get into it.
A lot of people talk about changing the plane of their golf swing, getting a little bit higher on their golf swing. Well, have they got the shoulder stability to do that. I know I have because I go in the gym and work on that. All of the stuff that I do in the gym is relative to what I'm trying to do on the golf course or changes I'm trying to make in my swing.

Q. If this event was held here five years ago, against this field, would you have had little chance to win then, do you think?
LEE WESTWOOD: Five years ago?

Q. Before you did all your stamina work on this golf course.
LEE WESTWOOD: It's impossible to tell. I can't think that it will do me any harm to be fit. It's got to be an advantage somewhere along the line. I'm not saying I can go out and run a marathon or anything like that, but I would do enough cardio in the gym to know that I'm fit enough to do 36 holes if need be.

Q. Did you ever smoke?
LEE WESTWOOD: No.
I'm pretty analytical about it with Steve and we look at performances dropping off at the end of rounds and I'm still performing over the last few holes. So I feel like I'm in it good shape for golf.

Q. Do you pay attention to what you have to do week-in and week-out regarding the World Ranking? Does someone from ISM tell you that Luke --
LEE WESTWOOD: I don't need anybody at ISM. I have this lot sat in the middle telling me every week (laughing).

Q. Your dad tells you, doesn't he?
LEE WESTWOOD: My dad knows it, but we are beyond that point now. Everything I read is so-and-so could go past Lee Westwood, so-and-so could go past Lee Westwood. Unfortunately that's how it is when you're No. 1. You can only go one way. It never is a line where it says Lee Westwood can go past, because there is nobody in front of me. So I just have to live with it.

Q. And when you win, somebody can go past you.
LEE WESTWOOD: Exactly. I just learn to live with it. And I'm not really worried about it. We are all out here with the purpose of trying to win golf tournaments really.
MARÃA ACACIA: Thank you very much, Lee.

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