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MASTERS TOURNAMENT


November 9, 2020


Lee Westwood


Augusta, Georgia

Q. Lee, how are you finding the course different in November compared to April?
LEE WESTWOOD: It's a little bit more Bermuda on it than there would be in April. The rye grass is not (inaudible) and the greens are a little bit slow at the moment, but I'm sure they're going to speed up. Depending on the conditions. Obviously, if it rains, they'll slow down. But normally they're a little bit quicker than they have been the last couple of days, but it's only Monday morning before the tournament. Generally, the greens speed up as the week goes on.
Yeah, there's a lot of grass on the golf course and fantastic conditions. So looking forward to the week.

Q. So it's obviously different without patrons here, particularly when you get down to Amen Corner. How different does it feel, and how do you think that will impact competition?
LEE WESTWOOD: Yeah, it's very different obviously. There's normally thousands of people behind the 12th green and down the right inside of 11 and 13. 15 and 16 is a massive difference as well. So, yeah, it takes some getting used to, obviously. This is a large acreage of land and right now (inaudible).
I remember the first time I came here, and I got here a week in advance. I walked out here and couldn't believe how green it was and how hilly it was. (Inaudible).

Q. And with no grandstands out there, how are holes playing differently, do you think?
LEE WESTWOOD: Well, it's more open. The grandstands tend to break some of the holes. So you do see more left of 15, the other side of the bridge, and they're open areas. 4 looks very different. There's normally a grandstand down to the left of 4. So, yeah, it's made quite a significant difference. I'm sure you could play some of the holes slightly different to the way you would normally play them.

Q. Is age a barrier to winning at Augusta or an advantage?
LEE WESTWOOD: I don't think age is a barrier as long as you've still got all the attributes it takes to win at Augusta. It does play into the longer hits, playing to hit the ball high, I guess. But there's no age barrier to doing what you need to do to win at Augusta.
Experience counts a lot around here. You can look at the repeat winners they've had. Generally, people, if they play well, they want to play well repeat times. I've placed second a couple of times and third, I think, and quite a lot of top tens over the last few years. So there is definitely a knack for playing this golf course, and it's a knack that you learn only really by playing the tournament here.
You can play as practice rounds as you want, but it's only until the tournament starts that you start to learn more about the golf course.

Q. And how are you feeling about the state of your game right now? What's in form?
LEE WESTWOOD: Yeah, I've been playing consistently well. Last week the golf course, the severity of it came as a bit of a shock to me, and I shot 77 first round. Then I bounced back and shot 69 the second round, and that's as many as it could have been really. I had a good run in the tournament and shot some low rounds. It's nice to come back to where I've played well historically, and obviously carrying a bit of momentum with that 69 from Australia.

Q. You kind of missed out on it here the last couple of years. Just talk about how happy you are to be back, and what did you do those years you were not here? Did you watch it? Did you try to stay away from it?
LEE WESTWOOD: I didn't watch a lot of it, no. I obviously wanted to be here, and I was pretty sick that I wasn't. So placing fourth The Open last year was a good achievement and the chance to win the tournament, but one of the bonuses to finishing fourth was getting the exemption to come back here. So been excited for about a year now.
It's nice to be back playing in this tournament. It's my favorite tournament to play in.

FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports



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