Westwood sets pace in chase for 44th title
Veteran has chance to get back into world’s top 50 Leader admits he will have ‘to rein in my excitement’
Just to be leading going into the final round of one of the European Tour’s most lucrative events in your 28th year on the circuit is surely achievement enough. Yet such are the standards Lee Westwood has set himself in his remarkable stint at the top of the game, he will only be satisfied with victory in the Abu Dhabi Championship today.
On 14 under, the 46-year-old is one clear of Austria’s Bernd Wiesberger and Italian Francesco Laporta, with Matt Fitzpatrick on 12 under and Spain’s Sergio Garcia and American Kurt Kitayama one further back.
To put Westwood’s longevity into perspective, Fitzpatrick and Kitayama were not even born when he first got on tour as a teenager in 1993.
“If you’d asked that 19-yearold at Q-school in Montpellier, what will you be doing at the start of 2020, I doubt he’d have said he’d be leading a $7 million Rolex Series Event,” Westwood said. “It’s just fun, isn’t it? Playing the game that I love.”
Westwood adores golf, but perhaps his enduring ability to mix it with the best can be put down to the fact that he has never been obsessed by it. And in the twilight of his career, the former world No1 finds it easier than ever to leave his clubs in the boot. Westwood figures that between finishing 2019 in November and coming here, he played “about three rounds and hit balls on the range for about three hours in total”.
“I just gave my mind a rest,” he added. Not that there was not plenty to think about. Westwood began working with fellow Tour pro Robert Rock at the back end of last season and returned to his former putting coach, Phil Kenyon, in October. The former has brought more width to Westwood’s familiar motion and the latter has persuaded him to employ the “claw” grip. It is hard to say which was more stunning in his third-round 65.
The 20-footer for par on the 11th was crucial to maintain the momentum, but his hybrid from 266 yards on the par-five eighth to kick-in range for the eagle was also a thing of beauty. “I played well, hit a lot fairways and putted well,” Westwood said. “I still get excited and have to rein myself in when I’m out there playing in the third round and start looking at leaderboards and thinking about winning, but that’s where you use your experience. It’s big money and there’s a lot at stake with my ranking and everything, but I’ll have no problem sleeping tonight.”
A 44th professional title would put him back into the world’s top 50 and in contention for an 11th Ryder Cup. The £900,000 first prize would also be welcome, taking him close to £40million in career earnings on tour.