Golf:Quality not quantity has worked wonders for Lee Westwood lately and the world number one will be happy to keep it that way as he starts his 2011 campaign in Abu Dhabi tomorrow.
Westwood, part of a star-studded field at the Abu Dhabi HSBC Championship also featuring all four of last season’s major winners (Graeme McDowell, Phil Mickelson, Louis Oosthuizen and Martin Kaymer), is now in his 12th week as the top-ranked player in the game.
Yet in that time he has played only three tournaments. Westwood was runner-up to Ryder Cup team-mate Francesco Molinari in Shanghai, third at the Dubai World Championship and then a runaway eight-stroke winner of the Nedbank Challenge in South Africa.
The 37-year-old has had six weeks off since then, but flew to the Middle East a week ago to “shake the rust off” and it will be something of a shock if there is a repeat of last year’s missed cut, his only one in the past 20 months.
“I’m just trying to continue where I left off last season,” said Westwood, whose last competitive shot saw him chip-in for birdie at Sun City. “I know it’s a new year, but you don’t really think about that as a golfer - they all blend into each other after a while. This is my 18th year on tour.
“There is a lot of focus on you when you are world number one; it’s quite intense and there’s a lot to do, and it was nice to get away, lock the clubs up for four or five weeks, not think about holing three or four-footers for par and get mentally fresh.”
“I’ve got that feeling where it may be a good week, but I’m not putting any pressure on myself, I’m going out there with no expectations. I’ve got to try to get my preparation right for Augusta in April,” added Westwood in reference to the US Masters, the first major of the season.
The added ingredient in Abu Dhabi from previous seasons is that the one player to beat Westwood at Augusta last spring - Phil Mickelson – is competing.
The American, now joint fourth in the world with Graeme McDowell after failing in more than a dozen attempts to take the number one spot off Tiger Woods last year, is back in action after an even longer break than Westwood.
Mickelson’s last event was in Singapore in mid-November, but has not been idle. “It was my turn to plan our anniversary trip last year and, knowing it’s been a dream of Amy’s to see the pyramids, we went to Egypt,” he said.
“We spent time in Cairo and Luxor, went to the Valley of the Kings and the Valley of the Queens, saw the tombs of the nobles, the Cairo Museum and the Karnak Temple. We were home for a while and then took the whole family skiing in Montana.”
Now he describes it as “time to get back to work” and the fact that this is the start of six events in a row shows that the psoriactic arthritis he began treatment for last summer is not too much of a worry.
“My body feels great and I’ve been able to practise and work out.”
The fact remains, though, that Mickelson has had only one top 10 finish since the US Open at Pebble Beach last June where McDowell famously won his maiden major.
He and McDowell are paired together for the first two rounds, as are British Open and US PGA champions, Oosthuizen and Kaymer. The German is also this week’s defending champion and will be trying to make it three wins in four years.
McDowell is one nine Irish players in the stellar field this week which includes; Pádraig Harrington, Rory McIlroy, Darren Clarke, Peter Lawrie, Gareth Maybin, Damien McGrane, Michael Hoey and Paul McGinley.
