Short story hands Lee a major boost
LEE WESTWOOD is heading to the Masters so enthused by dramatic improvements to his short game he is prepared to offer a startling assessment.
‘If I’d had as good a short game five years ago as I have now I’d be stood in front of you with five Major championships to my name,’ said the Englishman.
As many as Seve Ballesteros? If that feels like it is stretching credulity, all Westwood has to do is point the sceptical in the direction of the record books.
Seven times in the past 20 majors he has finished in the top three and on five of those occasions he has finished within three shots of the winning score. If he had been just one shot better each day around the greens, therefore, he would have his five Majors.
‘My short game is brilliant now compared to what it was,’ he said. ‘I’m not getting up and down because I’m holing loads of seven to 10-footers, I’m getting up and down because I am chipping to two feet all the time. My bunker play has been really good. In fact, from 60 yards in, everything has been great.
‘I think the difference is being able to work on it constantly with living over here now. My technique is so much better and doing it myself helps. I don’t think there’s anything more anyone can teach me, so I go away to the chipping area and work on i t on my own.’
The Masters in a fort night will be Westwood’s 60th and last Major before his 40th birthday and the big question is whether these improvements will withstand the pressure on a Sunday afternoon.
He remains such a wonderful ball striker there is little doubt he will earn more chances for himself — and never mind that landmark birthday at the end of April.
As he says: ‘The fact is I’m a lot fitter at 39 than I was at 29 and I gave myself plenty of opportunities in my 30s, so why not my 40s?’
Does he still possess enough nerve to take them, when every time he gets into contention he will be bombarded by questions relating to the fact that he has never won one? His results have tailed off dramatically since throwing away a golden chance to win his f i rst World Golf Championship event in China last November, when his short game l et him down once more. His world ranking, something in which he takes great pride, has slipped to the point where he is ranked outside the top 10 for the first time since 2009. Wes t wood spent more than three years ranked among the top three, including top spot on two occasions. Now he is outside the top three Englishmen, trailing Luke Donald (two, below), Justin Rose (three) and Ian Poulter (12) in 13th place. He offers up a plausible explanation.
‘There’s just been a lot going on, with moving to Florida, and my concentration has been drifting away at the wrong times,’ he said. ‘ There’s been buying houses, trying to sell houses, selling houses, getting the kids settled, getting me settled. They say moving is one of the most stressful things you can do and it has been a big upheaval.
‘ It’s not frustrating because I know why it’s happening and I’m not worried about i t because I know the Masters is going to concentrate my mind. It was like last week at Bay Hill, where I had triple bogeys on three successive days, which is something I never do, but that’s just little lapses in concentration where I’m off in the clouds.’
With his short-game improvements, Augusta might now offer Westwood his best chance of winning a Major. It is such a big golf course t hese days, with an increased emphasis on driving the ball well and being pitch-perfect with your irons, it is no surprise he has finished in the top three in two of the last three editions. This year he will go in under the radar, which might suit him, and at 33-1 offers outstanding each-way value.
First up, though, is the Shell Houston Open, where he starts today in the company of South African Louis Oosthuizen and improving American Charlie Beljan.
‘Time to get the game face on with the Masters so close, isn’t it?’ said Westwood with a smile. When it comes to winning that elusive major, the long and now the short of it as well remains: don’t give up on him just yet.