Westwood is not taking a virus chance
LEE’S LOATH TO VISIT USA
LEE WESTWOOD will be putting health above wealth and skipping the big paydays in the United States to concentrate on European Tour golf for the foreseeable future.
The asthmatic 47-year-old, who tops the bill in the British Masters at Close House near Newcastle today, is wary of travelling to America while coronavirus figures remain high there.
Several of Europe’s leading lights have been drawn to the relative riches of the PGA Tour, but Westwood is content to build his schedule closer to home, having already written off the USPGA Championship next month.
“Nobody wants to miss Majors or World Golf Championship events like the one next week that I qualified for,” said
Westwood. “I hear today that California is back in lockdown and it doesn’t inspire me to get on a plane for 12 hours and go to San Francisco and play the PGA Championship. I don’t feel like I’m ready to do that. “Hopefully I can play the US Open in New York in September but right now who knows? “The United States seem to have a lot of cases and paying the price for not clamping down on it earlier.” The regulations are strict for the European Tour’s full resumption after two dual-ranking events in Austria, with mandatory Covid-19 tests on arrival at Close House, no fans and even elbow bumps banned. Players must remain in a designated hotel in the evening with a maximum of one designated “buddy”. The hardline approach may not be much fun – although with his fiancee on his bag as his buddy it is no great personal hardship for Westwood – but it seems to be working. As of last night there had been no positive tests, unlike the USA where Grayson Murray, above, became the latest player to test positive and had to pull out of tomorrow’s 3M Open in Minnesota. “The testing procedure has been very thorough, military-style almost,” said Westwood. “There’s not a moment in the day when it doesn’t feel like your health is being checked or someone has their eye on you and I think that is probably a good thing. “People need guidance and if you look back over the past five or six months at the way the public have been treated, there have been too many grey areas and that is what the European Tour have been trying to eradicate.” Westwood, the world No34, is the highest-ranked player in the field and starts as favourite on his home course.