David Davies Golf
Westwood and Woods, two young tigers whose names tended to be on the top of leaderboards around the world last year, are not quite fulfilling their billing this year. It has been a while since either Lee Westwood or Tiger Woods has growled at anybody.
In fact, all the roaring lately has come from David Duval. If, as Westwood noted this week, the American was looking for another good season to follow last year’s, then “he’s already had it”. He has won so often that the expectation in Georgia, United States, this week was that all he had to do to win the $190-million state lottery was buy a ticket.
But, with the US Masters this weekend, both Westwood and Woods are aware that the time has come for serious application. Both, in fact, have followed the same route of preliminary preparation by not playing in last week’s BellSouth Classic.
Westwood went to the Bahamas with his wife and, he admitted this week, his clubs. He felt he needed a break from the strict regimen imposed by tournament routine but he also knew that there was work to be done on his game. “I hit balls every day,” he said, “but there was some swimming and sunbathing too.”
In taking the decision to go on holiday the Worksop man was making use of the experience he gained last year. The week before the Masters he won the New Orleans Open and there were a great many demands on his time. And so, although he admitted that his start to the season has been quiet, he opted for beaches rather than bunkers last week.
“Because I took nine weeks off around Christmas,” said Westwood, “I couldn’t play tournaments early on and since then I’ve had difficulty getting into any kind of rhythm. But I was happy with the way I played in the Players’ Championship. Last year I finished sixth and felt that was the absolute best I could have done. This year I finished sixth again and felt that I’d left a lot of shots out there on the golf course.”
He is learning to pace his preparation on site as well. “My first time here I’d played 72 holes by Tuesday,” he said. “So far this time I’ve played nine. It’s all a part of feeling comfortable with the place and the occasion. I’m looking to start winning tournaments now, from this week on.”
Woods is the man supplanted by Duval after 41 weeks as world number one. “Unfortunately,” he said, “I haven’t been able to make the shots at the right time recently. Guys are outplaying me down the stretch. But that’s just a part of the game. You have to keep giving yourself chances and eventually it will come round your way.”
Although Woods did win in February, more recently he has recorded finishes as low as 53rd and 56th, while at the Players he was behind Westwood, in 10th place. This week he was asked how it felt now that, for the first time in his life, he was not dominating the level of golf at which he was playing. “It’s part of the game,” he responded, with all the gravitas that a 23- year-old can impart. “You have to understand that you can’t play well all the time.
“I look to see, if I’m not winning, do I have a chance in the final round with nine holes to play? And the majority of the time the answer is yes. That’s where you want to be because eventually you’ll shoot 30, or 29, on the back nine and win.”
But regardless of recent form, Woods will start as the favourite for the Masters. That is down to the form he showed two years ago when he brushed aside the field as if they were a pile of practice balls, surging to victory by 12 strokes with a total of 18 under par.
This year his practising has been so intense that even his fellow competitors have noticed it. Was this as a result of losing his ranking?
“No,” he replied, “it has nothing to do with the number one thing. It’s because this is a major and that’s really what it’s all about: winning the big ones.”