	products recent interviews FastScripts archive about ASAP Sports

Our Clients:

Browse by Sport

Find us on

Subscribe to RSS

Click to go to
Asaptext.com

View our
e-Brochure

ARNOLD PALMER INVITATIONAL PRESENTED BY MASTERCARD

March 14, 2008

Lee Westwood

ORLANDO, FLORIDA

JOAN vT ALEXANDER: Thank you, Lee, for joining us for a few minutes here in the media center. It is a little bit cooler out there today, and the wind didn't seem to blow very much. Why don't you start with some opening comments about the conditions and your round today.
LEE WESTWOOD: No, it was there, the scoring it was there to be taken, the course, I thought from the morning players, the wind only really got up on our last three holes, one of which I birdied and played pretty solidly all day around.
I hit one bad drive off 8 into the right-hand trees and it wasn't that far off-line, but was never really in too much trouble all day. Hit a few long drives, as well. Just didn't hit my iron shots close enough to the flags often enough. I was 20 to 30 feet; whereas yesterday, I was 10 to 20 feet. Just didn't give myself as many opportunities as I would have liked. Left a few hanging on the edge of the hole but you're going to do that when you don't hit it close enough.
All in all I was pleased with the way things went. 68 is a good score, Bay Hill in the calmest conditions is never easy and I'm set up pretty good for the weekend.

Q. Must be your best position going into the weekend for an American tournament for a while.
LEE WESTWOOD: Yeah, I suppose so. I've played pretty well. I played with Tiger in the Bridgestone last year when he went on to win, and I was obviously in contention there. That was really the last time I played on this tour, other than L.A. where I got the wrong end of the draw; and the other one was the Match Play. So I've just carried on the form that I've built up end of last year in Europe and Asia and the start of the year in the Middle East.
So there's no reason why I shouldn't carry that form on just because the tournament is in the States.

Q. You must be delighted with your driving. You're hitting it miles.
LEE WESTWOOD: Yeah, the work I'm doing in the gym is really paying off. I feel like I've got a lot more control with my bigger muscles in my body. If I wanted to hit it harder, I can hit it harder and not lose control which is great. If I want easy shots, I have lots of control and my legs feel very solid underneath me, so, yeah, I'm very pleased the hard work in the gym is paying off.

Q. How much farther are you hitting it?
LEE WESTWOOD: It's difficult to say. It feels, when I play with the people I played with a couple of years ago, if I feel like I could be anything up to sort of 20 yards longer.

Q. Had you played with Forsman and Gamez before?
LEE WESTWOOD: Yeah, but not for a long time. You know, just judging by other people I've played with recently. And their caddies have said, "God, you're hitting it a lot further."

Q. Is that quite nice that it gives you more option rather than just taking 3-wood and knowing you have to hit it as far as you can?
LEE WESTWOOD: Yeah, when everybody else has been hitting 3-wood, I've been hitting 5-wood. There's holes I can pull driver and hit it over the corner, like on 15, I've done it twice. It used to be 3-wood down there for me and then a 6-, 7- or 8-iron in there, and got much more opportunity to attack the flags. Obviously I'm going in with shorter clubs. You know, it's making a big difference and I can get up on 12 quite comfortably now. Didn't hit a particularly good drive there today and only had 250 flag and hit an easy 5-wood up there.

Q. Did you struggle to reach that?
LEE WESTWOOD: Yeah, I would have done, yeah. So, you know, it's quite a dramatic difference to the way I play golf courses now.

Q. How do you play 6?
LEE WESTWOOD: I haven't hit it far enough left really but I hit it straight at the tree down the right-hand side, not far, a bit further right than I wanted and hit 5-wood and just held up into the wind, I think it was about 242 to about eight feet and missed it. That was one that got away.

Q. Did you swear when the ball was in the air on the 12th, the par 5? You seemed to be cursing.
LEE WESTWOOD: No. I asked it to get down because it had come out hot but when it landed on the green -- I never swear. You know that.

Q. That's the reason why I asked; surprised.
LEE WESTWOOD: Yeah. I might have said, "Oh, God, get down." But that's as bad as it was.

Q. From, say, I would guess middle of August onward, early September onward the level of consistency has been quite good, a number of Top-10s, etc. What's caused that, what part of your game do you think has led to that and do you think this is as consistent as you've been in should time?
LEE WESTWOOD: A long time. It's a combination of a lot of things really; the hard work in the gym playing off, the third, fourth week, I'm still as fresh as I was the first week, or if not stronger. Short game with Mark Roe has obviously been paying off. When I miss greens, I'm getting up-and-down quite regularly now as I did today. All that leads to your confidence building up and you can be more aggressive at flags.
And I'm starting to roll a few more in on the greens, but I'm giving myself more opportunities. So, you know, one lead to the other.

Q. Was it dramatically different what you were doing in the different to what you've done in the past?
LEE WESTWOOD: I'm doing a lot more weights now. I go through phases, different phases of training. I'm into a power phase now where I'm working with an Olympic bar and the weights on either end and doing a lot of power inclines and squats with the bar on my shoulders and stuff like that. So this is a power stage I'm going through. I do between an hour and a half and two hours, but that's a lot of -- not hardly any cardio, a lot of ball work and rotational stuff, balance work, and then towards the end, a good hour of weights.

Q. Kind of a general Masters question for you. It seems like we've had different eras of the Masters, of the big three winning, and in the 80s, Europe was winning a lot of it. Have we reached an era now where it's completely different than its ever been before? Are we entering a new era? Some have referred to it as more feeling like a U.S. Open than a Masters. Where are we right now, as often as you've played it?
LEE WESTWOOD: I think we are in an era, Zach won last year so, it opened everybody's eyes that it wasn't such a bomber's course and you could play the golf course tactically and almost cautiously, like a U.S. Open, where he was laying up on the par 5s and pitching into them. That's almost how you would play a U.S. Open, keeping it in play.
I think unless they make dramatic changes, gone are the days where you see people shooting 30 around the back nine, big come-from-behinds like Jack in '86. It's going to be, pars are precious sort of golf I think, very much like the U.S. Open.

Q. Did you play in '04?
LEE WESTWOOD: Who won?

Q. Mickelson, first win.
LEE WESTWOOD: I don't know. I think I did, yeah.

Q. That was the year where there was kind of that 30-ish for both of them.
LEE WESTWOOD: Yeah, but the last couple of years they have put a lot of length on, and it's played a lot firmer. I think it may have rained somewhere during that week and softened it up a bit, because I remember seeing Phil hit into, I think it was 14, and spinning one in. Well, last year, that was impossible; the greens were so firm.

Q. Has it lost its fun?
LEE WESTWOOD: It's still fun to play but not as much fun as it was, you know, when the course was -- you could attack it a little bit more. I think that's more fun. You tell me; do you hear as many cheers out there as you used to?

Q. Very quiet last year.
LEE WESTWOOD: From the gallery, it was very quiet. People like to see birdies.

Q. Have you guys started drug testing in Europe yet?
LEE WESTWOOD: I think we start the same time, don't we? July 1. We're all being terrified by it -- no, not that. Educated, yeah. But thankfully as far as I can tell, alcohol is not on the banned list, so I'm all right. If they ban vodka, I'm giving up golf. (Laughing).

Q. There seems to be a lot of trepidation by a lot of the U.S. players.
LEE WESTWOOD: The problem with the drugs testing is different tours have different banned substances, and there's a gray area right in the middle. I can't understand why everybody can't get together and have one list and that be worldwide and then you won't get somebody being tripped up. Because it seems to me like somebody's reputation is going to be really tainted just because of an innocent mistake where, you know, there are more on our banned list. So it's more likely to be an American player coming over and playing in the British Open and just getting caught out by something perfectly innocent.
So I think that they need to get together. I can't understand why we can't have a list that covers everybody. I think it's ridiculous personally.

Q. Can you give us an example?
LEE WESTWOOD: Well, I'm asthmatic and I take salbutamol, and that's illegal there and it's legal here. I spoke to the doctor here and he said you don't need a TUE, temporary use exemption, here.
Well, there might be somebody taking something on this tour that's not acceptable in Europe. There might be an asthmatic here that doesn't realize it's banned in Europe, and it's too late once you've tested positive.
So I can't understand how they can't get together. I think it's really ridiculous personally.

Q. What's been the feeling amongst the players?
LEE WESTWOOD: I think we are all for drugs testing. The reputation of sport is at stake, and we are one of the few sports that didn't have drugs testing, and I don't really think there are any drugs that can help golfers too much, because it's separate to everything else. It's not really that physically a demanding sport compared to, you know, say sprinting or baseball in this country.
So we're all for drugs testing, because I don't think there's anybody out here doing it. But you've got it get it right, because you don't want to trip somebody up that makes an innocent mistake.

Q. Just curious, given your age and how long you've been playing the game, because one of the arguments they say against drug testing in golf is that it's such a sport ruled by integrity; do you think players now, and I'm talking more, say, 23, 24 and younger, are more likely to cheat? I'm not talking about drugs necessarily, but even a ball moving a little bit.
LEE WESTWOOD: I don't think so. I think people playing golf are brought up with the rules and integrity of the game from a very early age, and I don't think it makes any difference. I've known people that have cheated, you know, later on in life and they are 50, 60. So I don't think age has anything to do with it.
JOAN vT ALEXANDER: Thank you.

End of FastScripts

ASAP Sports, Inc. | T: 1.212 385 0297