|
|||
|
|||
|
 |
|
|
WASTE MANAGEMENT PHOENIX OPENJanuary 29, 2014Lee WestwoodSCOTTSDALE, ARIZONA THE MODERATOR: Lee Westwood, first start here at the Waste Management Phoenix Open, and you obviously had a chance, quite a lengthy chance to see the course today. So, with that, I will just turn it over to you with comments on being here. LEE WESTWOOD: Yeah, and I played nine holes yesterday afternoon.  I wanted to play the back nine to see some of the holes, 13 and 15, 16, 17, because they seem to be the ones that people talk about. It's a nice golf course. I think it gives you a lot of birdie chances. Obviously if the weather is like this, you can really get stuck into the golf course. But obviously if you're not sharp, then it can penalize you. I expect a low score to win this week. THE MODERATOR: We'll open it up for questions. Q. I know you have come down the stretch in Ryder Cups and major championships and the crowd's going nuts. Have you thought about what it's going to be like at 16 or 17 or 18 where there are tens of thousands of people there? LEE WESTWOOD: Not really. I mean, it can only be like similar to the, for me, a similar experience to Medina last year, I guess. You know, the crowd were into it there. I think obviously 16 is unique in the world of golf. There is nothing else like that. But, you know, you just need a little bit extra focus and concentration at those times but also to enjoy it, I think. I think itseems to be a great experience out there. Everybody is enjoying themselves. Listen, if I had bought a ticket and I was coming to this tournament, I'd be in 16 drinking beers, too. That's right where I'd be (laughter). Q. Have you had any experience watching, gotten any advice from anybody, talked to anybody? LEE WESTWOOD: I have obviously seen it on TV before. No, I haven't looked for any advice. I know how to concentrate (smiling). Q. Do you like the environment? LEE WESTWOOD: Yeah, it seems like good fun, yeah. Yeah. It's very different. I'm glad it's only a 8‑iron. Q. You and Poulter both finished at 16‑under in the pro‑am. Did you think about a tiebreaker? LEE WESTWOOD: I think we both had good teams. They introduced my team on the first tee as three‑time defending champion, the first guy, and I thought... (laughter). And then the next guy was a defending champion. And then the other guy was a defending champion. So I thought, well, these lads know what they are doing on the golf course. And it proved that way. We were 5‑under after three and finished 16‑under. So I wouldn't say they are bandits, but they know how to get the ball in the hole, and they ham and eggroll. Q. What is your schedule from here? LEE WESTWOOD: I have a week off next week, and then LA, Match Play, Honda, Doral, week off, Houston. Sorry, week off, Bay Hill, week off, Houston, Masters. Quite a full schedule. Q. Will you go up to Augusta beforehand? LEE WESTWOOD: I may do. I didn't last year. I have done it two or three times before that. I know Augusta pretty well now, and I found the last few years that going up two weeks before, the golf course doesn't play anything like it does ‑‑the golf course doesn't play anything like what it does on Thursday on the Monday before the tournament, so two weeks before, it's completely different. So, yeah, I think Augusta is one of those places where you really learn the most about it when you play competitive rounds around it. So I had quite a lot of that the last few years and I have been in contention a lot. So I have learned quite a lot through being in contention in the last few Masters. Q. Why did you add this one to your schedule? LEE WESTWOOD: Well, normally I would go play the Middle East swing. I would go and play Abu Dhabi, Qatar, and Dubai or two of those three. I decided not to go this year and wanted to play a few more events in the States. If you don't play these, then you're giving up a big start, because, you know, they have played six before the season, so it started last year. So it's like a quarter of the schedule gone if you don't start until Pebble or LA, so it makes sense to play a couple of these. Both of tournaments I wanted to play ‑‑ I played SanDiego last week before but ten years ago, and this I have never played before, so I wanted to come see what it's like. And Ping obviously has been a big supporter of mine for many years and they are linked with this tournament, and they said obviously it would be nice if I came and played. It's the first real opportunity I have had, and I'm enjoying it. Q. You have been going through quite a bit of changes the last couple of years, moving to the States, focusing on short game, working with Foley. Where are you at in the process of all these changes? LEE WESTWOOD: I've got a fair bit of continuity at the moment. I feel like my game is coming around. There have been a lot of changes, so that's been difficult, sometimes difficult to see which part of your game is wrong when there are so many different things going on. But, you know, I feel like I have a grasp of it at the moment and I'm hitting the ball well, as good as I've hit for a while, and I'm rolling the ball on the greens better than I have been for the last two or three years. Q. So you can play without thinking about it? LEE WESTWOOD: Yeah, that's the ultimate goal. Last week I had a lot of swing thoughts, but I managed to sort of thin them down to a couple, and, you know, go with that this week and see how it goes. There's nothing worse than standing over the ball with four or five things going through your mind. Q. How's the relationship been with Sean in terms of how often do you guys work together? LEE WESTWOOD: We haven't worked a lot recently, but we had dinner last week. I get on with him really well. He's great company and he's a great coach. I like picking his brains. Q. Brains? LEE WESTWOOD: Brains? Is that not a used term over here, "picking somebody's brains"? Q. "Brain." Close enough. LEE WESTWOOD: Okay. He's really clever (laughter). Q. There's some debate over guys leaving the European Tour, coming over and weakening that tour. What's your take on that? LEE WESTWOOD: It's disappointing for the European Tour, obviously, but players are choosing where they want to play now, and a lot are based over here, so it makes sense to play here. A few are based in England, and it's closer to go play in Florida than in China certain times of the year, so I don't know what the answer is for the European Tour at the moment. Q. Do you think they made a mistake by internationalizing it instead of having it based localized pretty much in Europe? LEE WESTWOOD: I think they had to go further afield to get sponsors, really. You know, the economic climate in Europe is not great at the moment, and they lost a lot of sponsors in places like Spain, Italy, Germany, and England. So they had to look to places that had the cash, and that was China and Asia and South Africa. You know, it's just‑‑ I wouldn't say it's unfortunate, but they got away from an identity of playing on the European Tour. I don't know what the answer is. Maybe we play too many tournaments nowadays. Maybe the season is too long. I have often thought that with golf that people get bored of watching the same thing all the time. NFL, you have an offseason. Soccer in England, you have an offseason. There isn't an offseason in golf where people can shut off from it, even the people that watch the game, and recharge. I think the trouble with a 12‑month season is the fields get diluted and you don't get the top players together often enough. You get it with the Majors and World Golf Championships and a couple other events, but after that, it's like one player there. Q. I heard, I think it was Colsaerts in La Jolla, he was in an excited moment, talking about how the U.S. tour was the best tour, best courses. Do you have a sense of that? Is it? LEE WESTWOOD: I'm a big supporter of the European Tour, but I'd have to say at the moment I think the PGA TOUR is dominating the world tours, it's the biggest tour, playing for the most money, most world ranking points, probably on the best golf courses. You rarely play a bad golf course on this tour. But having said that, you know, I hope there is something that the European Tour can do to stabilize it all. Q. Are you focusing more on your long game or short game right now? LEE WESTWOOD: I need to focus on all of it. It's all been fairly scratchy or ropey or whatever you want to call it over the last year. So I'm having to work on all of it. I have been working mainly on my putting over the last few weeks, and I feel like I have got key with that. I putted nicely last week, made my fair share. But I'm continually working on my short game. I always want that to improve. And long game, too.  I think you get to a certain level where you've got a base from what you're working off, and then you just fine‑tune it all the time. Q. Anything planned for Saturday at 16? Handing out anything? LEE WESTWOOD: Not at the moment. Hopefully a 2 (smiling). No, nothing at the moment. I'm obviously a virgin to this tournament and the 16th. Don't really know what to expect. You might have to give me a year to take it all in and see what happens out there. When I come back next year I'll have a little bit better idea. THE MODERATOR: We appreciate your time. Best of luck this week. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports |
|
||||||||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
About ASAP Sports •
FastScripts Archive •
Recent Interviews •
Captioning •
Upcoming Events •
Contact Us
FastScripts | Events Covered | Our Clients | Other Services | ASAP in the News | Site Map | Job Opportunities | Links |
|
ASAP Sports, Inc. | T: 1.212 385 0297
|