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BMW MASTERS PRESENTED BY SRE GROUPOctober 23, 2013Lee WestwoodSHANGHAI, CHINA PAUL SYMES: First week of a four‑week stretch for you, you must be excited about the run of events you've got coming up. LEE WESTWOOD: Yeah, I'm looking forward to it. Obviously four great big events with big prize funds, and you know, I've just had five weeks off, so I'm looking forward to playing again and finishing off The European Tour schedule strongly. PAUL SYMES: You mentioned in a previous interview, you had a bit of a back issue; is that all cleared up now? LEE WESTWOOD: Yeah, that's how I played from the U.S. Open onwards with a sore back, so it was important to get some rest and sort that out for the rest of the year. I've done that, and fully fit now and looking forward to having a run of tournaments. PAUL SYMES: This is I believe your third time here; the course one that suits your game? LEE WESTWOOD: Yeah, I think it's a good venue. It's a strong golf course, quite long. The greens are tricky. They have got big undulations on them, some of them, so you have to play to certain spots. You can miss greens and you can get short‑sided and it's tough to get up‑and‑down. It's a good challenge. Q. Do you have a fitness regime that you do? LEE WESTWOOD: I don't have anybody traveling with me but I have somebody I work with back in Florida. We are working on flexibility and a little bit of weight loss and strengthening certain areas so I can make alterations to my golf swing more easily. Q. You've only played nine times on Tour this year but you can still win The Race to Dubai. Does that surprise you? LEE WESTWOOD: Yes, I have only played nine times and haven't won. I haven't finished better than third. I've played consistently. The biggest disappointment from those nine events‑‑ I suppose not winning The Open was a disappointment but not winning the PGA Championship, I had a great chance there in the last group, and everything unfolded in front of me, just hit a couple of bad shots coming in. But still have a chance to win the Money List, obviously something to strive for. Won it a couple of times but nice to win it a third time. I had a strong finish in 2009 when I won it. I won two of those four. It's possible if you win a couple of these events to make a lot of ground up. Q. And how would you sum up the first year in America playing full‑time? Are you pleased with the way it's gone and next year are you ready to kick on? LEE WESTWOOD: Yeah, this year was always going to be tough for me, moving house is obviously fairly stressful and not the easiest thing to do, and trying to concentrate on playing golf, as well. I'm seeing the right kind of effects on my game. Short game has improved a lot and starting to putt well. I feel a lot better, as well. Been a lot less traveling around for me and less toll on my body with regards to jet‑lag and things like that. Yeah, it's proving successful so far. Q. Inaudible. LEE WESTWOOD: Well, I don't know what those guys play. I think Justin is coming next week, and I think he's playing Turkey and Dubai, as well. It's up to the players which ones they want to play. You don't have to play all four. But obviously if they are big tournaments with big prize funds and a lot of World Ranking points and prize funds to play for and that will attract strong fields. It's a strong field this week without Sergio and Justin; so I think it can only be a good thing for golf in this region to have this series of events at the end of the year. It makes a lot much sense to come over and play a series of tournaments in a row; certainly coming for the HSBC next week makes sense to come and play this week, as well. Q. The PGA Tour and the European PGA, how do you balance your time and how do you feel about these two? LEE WESTWOOD: Well, the idea of moving to the States so that I could concentrate more on playing to the PGA TOUR. I was hardly going to move to the States and play more on The European Tour. The idea was to cut do you know on the jet‑lag and make it easier for me to travel around and focus on the PGA TOUR more and be successful there on there. I know it's always going to be my European Tour schedule that suffered and I'm going to end up playing 13, which is the minimum requirement to keep membership. So that's just the way it is. I supported The European Tour and a lot of European Tour events over the last 20 years. I just needed a change of direction, really and a fresh challenge, so that's the reason I played so much in the States and so little in Europe. I think I've played one European Tour event in Europe this year and going to play one more which is the Turkish Airlines, so it's not as many as I would normally play. But that's just the way it is at the moment for me. Q. Talk about your age and your opportunities for winning Majors? LEE WESTWOOD: Yeah, any time you come close to winning a Major Championship, it's disappointing. But obviously I've had lots of chances at The Open Championship really, three good chances in the last five years, and they are my primary goals, so they are the ones I focus on and try to get into contention with, which I've been successful at doing, and I'll continue to try and do that, get myself into contention and hopefully win one soon. Q. Playing and having a bad back, did you check with The European Tour if you were unable to finish the season, you could have gotten a medical? LEE WESTWOOD: I probably could have gotten a medical but it's not really an issue. I don't foresee any problems. Q. Can you talk about your fitness? LEE WESTWOOD: Yeah, I started working out seven or eight years ago now as I turned 30, mainly to strengthen in certain areas, become a bit fitter overall, because I felt like I needed to come out and for longevity; I hope to play well into my late 40s. That was strength fitness work and now I'm in more of a sort of flexibility phase, which is more injury‑prevention, I suppose. So that's where I am at the moment. Q. Do you have any idea of your golf club, any changes with your back? LEE WESTWOOD: No. I had a stiff back for a few weeks there and I had to try and make a few adjustments in the swing, so I wasn't really sort of playing 100 per cent fit, but no adjustments to clubs. Q. How has your relationship with the royal family been? LEE WESTWOOD: I don't know them that well and I wasn't invited to the christening, so I was pretty disappointed about that‑‑ maybe the next one. (Laughter). I've actually missed out on a lot of it this morning, and I was watching the BBC World News this morning and only found out he was being cyst ended today or tomorrow, so I should really pay more attention I think. PAUL SYMES: Thanks very much, Lee, have a great week. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports |
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