Sport | Golf

Defending the Race will be good

While Westwood savours Dubai win he wants to believe this is a new year

  • By Duane Fonseca, Staff Reporter
  • Published: 00:00 January 24, 2010
  • Gulf News

High on confidence
  • Image Credit: Ravindranath, Gulf News
  • Lee Westwood of England talks to the press at Abu Dhabi Golf Club recently. The Englishman returned to Jumeirah Golf Estates last week, the scene of his famous triumph, to unveil Fire, the newest of the four courses in the development.

Dubai : Consistency is everything in sport… you don't have consistency, you won't have success. It's a mantra Lee Westwood stuck with, consistently of course, throughout 2009. The rest as we know it is history.

Westwood consistently achieved good finishes in most of his tournaments and though it went down to the wire and to the final tournament of the year, the 36-year-old lifted his game at the season-ending Dubai World Championship (DWC) to seal a memorable six-shot victory, which also earned him the inaugural Race to Dubai honours.

The Englishman returned to Jumeirah Golf Estates last week, the scene of his famous triumph, to unveil Fire, the newest of the four courses on the development, where he gave us a glimpse into his past, present and future.

Gulf News: Is there pressure now that you are the first Dubai World Championship and Race to Dubai winner?

Westwood: It doesn't add any pressure because this is a completely different year, but what it [winning] can do is I can feed off the confidence I've got from winning here and the way I won as well. Under that kind of pressure I needed to win the tournament [DWC] to win the Race and doing that and doing it by six shots [was good]. So I should be trying to tap into that sort of thing and mindset and carry that into this year.

Is the challenge going to be even more fierce now because others would have lifted their game?

I don't know. I can't really think about that and the only real thing I can control is how I play and that's all I really try to focus on and what other people do isn't really of any interest to me. I think I learnt this at last year's tournament here — just to focus on my game and what I am doing — and if I can focus on my best then I should have a pretty good chance of winning.

How do you get back into the winning zone or do you never leave it?

Well you try not to leave it, but I did have a week off after the DWC last year. I feel refreshed and relaxed. The game's not quite sharp yet, but it hasn't been that long that I've forgotten what I was thinking of when I won the DWC.

I've learnt in every tournament especially Majors. You put these tournaments up on a pedestal; obviously I did everything right that DWC week and I'll be trying to get into that kind of mode for the Masters at Augusta.

You mentioned consistency, but are there other aspects you've worked upon as well?

It was a combination of a lot of things in 2009. I think the work I did with [fitness trainer] Steve McGregor in the gym is paying dividends now. My body is in better condition to get into better positions with the golf swing and when I want to work on things and make changes, my body finds it easy to make those changes.

I have worked extensively on my short game with [coach] Peter Cowen, so the stats there went up. I started hitting the ball tee to green more often than I did before and made two more putts in nearly every tournament, so I was two putts better than normal. And then after all the top10s and getting close and giving myself those chances I built my confidence up and played the patient waiting game. Then I won in Portugal and followed it up with the win in Dubai.

It is said you learn as you go. What does your learning curve look like?

I've always been a slow sort of learner and even though I came on the Tour when I was 19, and this is my 17th year, I feel I am really starting to get it up now. I've been in most situations so as you get older and more mature there are fewer and fewer surprises.

Any goals for the year ahead?

I don't really set sort of minimum goals. What I'm focusing on are the Major championships. Getting more consistency and defending the money list would be good. If I played in every Major and finished among the Top5 in every one and didn't win I wouldn't be disappointed with that so you can't really set what's the least you would like to achieve.

Have you lined up anything for the future… after golf?

As you get older you do tend to think about what you're going to do and things like that, but I'm in such a rich vein of form at the moment. I have a management group that is concentrating on things like that so that I can go out and play golf.

I enjoy playing golf, like I did when I started 17 years back, It's an adventure every week.

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