Westwood has sorted out ball flight as he looks to land first major title

Lee Westwood enters this week’s Open Championship under the radar – or so he hopes.

With Luke Donald cementing his place at the summit of golf with victory at the Barclays Scottish Open and Rory McIlroy the name on everyone’s lips after his stunning win at the US Open, few people are focusing on Westwood.

Even Tiger Woods is deflecting some of the attention from the 38-year-old Worksop professional – by not being at Royal St George’s this week for the Open as he bids to recover fully from knee and Achilles injuries.

But try as he might to retreat into the shadows on the practice range at Sandwich this week, the spotlight will at some stage switch to the world’s No 2.

When will he win a major?

Why has he not done so already?

Is he destined never to clinch one of the game’s defining prizes?

They are questions he is faced with in the week of every major championship.

“Hopefully, I come into the Open under the radar a little bit and can do the business,” Westwood says of the expectation that increases on him with each passing major.

“It probably won’t be easy, but with Luke Donald at No 1 and winning in Scotland and Rory McIlroy winning the US Open so emphatically, maybe not all the attention is going to be on me. It will be spread out.

“It certainly helps if you can come into it quietly and under the radar – if you can just deflect the attention to everybody else.”

The problem Westwood has is that his record screams loudly that he is currently the best golfer never to win a major.

He is a former world No 1, twice Europe’s top golfer, a Ryder Cup legend in the making and a winner of 35 tournaments worldwide.

He has done everything but win a major in the last three years.

Six top-three finishes and three more top-16s.

His sequence of finishes in the Open reads third, second...first?

How he would love to be proclaimed champion golfer of the year on Sunday evening, particularly at a course where he missed the cut eight years ago at the depths of his slump.

Westwood needs no reminding.

The possibility of ending his career without a major is not a fear factor, more a motivation.

At 38, he must be asking himself how many more chances will he get.

“It’s not a fear, I don’t think you can allow it to become that,” says Westwood.

“Getting close all the time is a confidence-booster. I know I’ve been as good as, if not better than everybody else in recent years in the major championships.

“It’s not like I’m not a prolific winner, I’ve won 30-odd tournaments, so winning a major championship really should be no different.

“I’ve been playing really well, been having some good results, third in the US Open was another good result but I need to to turn it into a major championship win.

“I keep putting myself in position.

“I just need a break here and there and to hole the odd putt here and there, I’m really not that far away.

“The more often that you put yourself into that situation where you’ve got a chance of winning the more familiar you become with it.

“It’s good to get under the cosh and in the heat of the action.”

So how does Westwood go about turning himself from contender into major champion?

As a world No 2 and after more than a decade in and among the top players on the tour, there can not be that much wrong with the swing.

But under the guidance of Rotherham-based coach Pete Cowen he has been working on correcting a swing that has been getting flatter in recent weeks.

“I’ve been tinkering around with my swing a little bit,” says Westwood, who finished seven shots behind Donald at Castle Stuart on Sunday.

“And I feel like I’m starting to swing it even better.

“I was just swinging around my body a little bit, so I’ve just been trying to get a bit more upright in the back swing which has helped a lot and I feel as though my ball flight has come down and I’m getting the right angle of attack on it now.

“Other than that, I’m not doing anything different mentally.”

What he will have to do is get off to a better start than he has done in the two most recent big events.

Westwood finished third behind McIlroy at Congressional and lost in a play-off to Donald at the BMW PGA Championship at Wentworth, each time after coming back from a poor first round.

At Wentworth, he trailed Donald by eight shots after an opening 72, one over par.

Then, three weeks later, he began with a 75 at Maryland to McIlroy’s 65.

“I was a long way off the pace in the first rounds of both those tournaments,” concedes Westwood.

“I felt a little bit unlucky at Wentworth, I played well enough to win it.

“I obviously hit it into the water (in the play-off to hand Donald victory) but it was also the way I played the last few holes; bogey, par, par – that was the reason I was in the play-off, it shouldn’t really have gone that far.

“Then after shooting a 75 in the first round of the US Open you’ve left yourself behind the eight-ball and US Open golf courses aren’t really the golf courses to play catch-up on.”

Royal St George’s plays like a US Open course. High rough, narrow, undulating fairways.

Eight years ago, the south-east coast of England provided the sternest test of Open Championship golf since Carnoustie four years earlier.

The rough might be more accommodating this year in that balls that find their way in may eventually find their way out.

But this week’s major challenge tests golfers’ accuracy, short game, golf-course management and patience.

“It’s very tricky,” adds Westwood, who missed the cut eight years ago as American Ben Curtis emerged from nowhere to lay claim to the Claret Jug.

“You get a lot of breaks at St George’s that you don’t think you should get so it’s a mental challenge as well as a physical challenge.

“I played and won a couple of amateur tournaments there so it’s not like I haven’t played well there.

“I’m a better player this Open than I was the last time it was there. I was going through a slump and not playing particularly well at all. This is a completely different situation.”

And what better time to end all those questions about the one glaring omission from his cv.

Early starts face McIlroy and Willett

Rory McIlroy will not have to wait long to begin his attempt to become the youngest Open champion since 1893 at Sandwich this week.

The US Open champion – the youngest winner of that event since Bobby Jones in 1923 – will tee off in Thursday’s first round at 9:09am, alongside 2002 winner Ernie Els and American Rickie Fowler.

McIlroy will start favourite at Royal St George’s and the 22-year-old will be looking for a similar start to last year at St Andrews, where he opened with a record-equalling 63 and went on to finish third, despite crashing to an 80 in bad weather in the second round.

Sheffield’s Danny Willett begins his Open debut in the first group out at 6.30am alongside Jerry Kelly, who took an 11 on the first hole eight years ago.

Selected tee-off times

(Gbr & Irl unless stated)

0630 & 1131 Nathan Green (Aus), Jerry Kelly (USA), Danny Willett

0725 & 1226 Simon Dyson, Thomas Bjorn (Den), Gary Woodland (USA)

0831 & 1332 Nick Watney (USA), Matteo Manassero (Ita), Angel Cabrera (Arg)

0842 & 1343 Yuta Ikeda (Jpn), Ian Poulter, Dustin Johnson (USA)

0858 & 1359 Paul Casey, Ben Curtis (USA), Aaron Baddeley (Aus)

0909 & 1410 Ernie Els (Rsa), Rory McIlroy, Rickie Fowler (USA)

0920 & 1421 Luke Donald, Ryo Ishikawa (Jpn), Sergio Garcia (Spa)

0931 & 1432 Hunter Mahan (USA), Retief Goosen (Rsa), Anders Hansen (Den)

0953 & 1454 Ross Fisher, John Daly (USA), Peter Hanson (Swe)

1015 & 1516 Alexander Noren (Swe), Paul Lawrie, Kevin Na (USA)

1259 & 0758 Jonathan Byrd (USA), Darren Clarke, YE Yang (Kor)

1321 & 0820 Bryden Macpherson (Aus), Matt Kuchar (USA), Padraig Harrington

1332 & 0831 Zach Johnson (USA), Adam Scott (Aus), Justin Rose

1343 & 0842 Jason Day (Aus), Graeme McDowell, Bubba Watson (USA)

1359 & 0858 Bernhard Langer (Ger), Jim Furyk (USA), Tadahiro Takayama (Jpn)

1410 & 0909 Lee Westwood, Steve Stricker (USA), Charl Schwartzel (Rsa)

1421 & 0920 Martin Kaymer (Ger), Louis Oosthuizen (Rsa), Phil Mickelson (USA)

1432 & 0931 Henrik Stenson (Swe), Tom Lewis, Tom Watson (USA)

Collated tee-off times at www.yorkshirepost.co.uk/sport

Malton’s Simon Dyson aims to make the most of his Open opportunity – interview with Nick Westby in tomorrow’s Yorkshire Post.