Westwood’s major ambition

• Last Updated: November 26. 2009 4:21PM UAE / November 26. 2009 12:21PM GMT

England’s Lee Westwood plays a shot during the third round of Dubai World Championship last week. Karl Jeffs / AP

Lee Westwood will enjoy a well-earned weekend off from competitive golf as the Omega Mission Hills World Cup unfolds in China over the next four days, but the Englishman is already aiming to build on his brilliant Race to Dubai triumph.

Westwood has the look of a major winner again, and following his superb victory in the Dubai World Championship he now possesses the self belief and mental strength to become one.

For the second time in his career he is Europe’s No 1 and has climbed to No 4 in the world rankings. But it is a different story – and a different Westwood – this time around.

Ten years ago he led the US Masters with nine holes to play, but slipped into a tie for sixth place and admitted later that he had not been ready for the intense Sunday afternoon pressure at Augusta.

He will be more than ready to try on a Green Jacket next April, and I see little to prevent him from making a serious assault on each of next year’s majors, and becoming the biggest challenger to world No 1 Tiger Woods.

His display at Greg Norman’s Earth Course was a golfing master- class. It seemed as if he just looked up, saw where he wanted to hit the ball, and that is precisely where it went.

He played much like that in 2000 when he won seven tournaments worldwide and knocked Colin Montgomerie off of his European perch.

The difference this time was that he had tremendous control of himself mentally, and emotionally; a level of discipline we have not seen before.

I even feel he might have surprised himself by reaching such a level of intensity and will have taken so much out of his week in Dubai.

He will be enormously excited about 2010, knowing that, after three third-place finishes in the majors over the past two years, he has found the extra edge needed to make a major breakthrough.

Even though he played the best golf during the Open at Turnberry in July, as he did in this year’s PGA Championship and last year’s US Open, I did not see the same level of intensity that he had in Dubai.

Now that he has found the one missing ingredient it will be interesting to see how effectively he can apply it from here on.

Westwood has a great ally in Billy Foster, one of the best caddies in the game. At the start of last week he gave his boss a good talking to, encouraging him to play like he had done 10 years ago and bully the opposition, rather than concern himself with what anyone else was doing.

For a big part of his career Lee has looked good enough to win a major, but this may be the first time that he genuinely believes be can do it.

If he was to analyse his game and compare it with that of Woods and Phil Mickelson, he would see that, apart from the area of scrambling, his golf is superior.

It is an area of his game that he is always working on, while he has always had the ability to get hot with the putter in his hands, as he did in Dubai.

If he can improve even more, and I am certain he will be working hard on his bunker play, chipping and short pitches, it is exciting to imagine how good he can become, especially in the majors when the courses are particularly tough and missing greens is inevitable.

While there was no fairy tale Race to Dubai win for Rory McIlroy, he will get over his disappointment quickly, starting with the World Cup this weekend, and will only get better.

After bogeying each of the last three holes in the third round it was always going to be difficult for him to catch Westwood, and difficult became impossible when Lee saved his best for last.

McIlroy is a fantastic striker of the ball and a wonderful all-round talent, yet what impresses me about him as much as anything is his maturity.

He is up to No 10 in the world rankings, having finished runner-up in the Race to Dubai helped by the best scoring average – 69.51 – on the European Tour.

He made the cut in 17 consecutive tournaments – more than any other player – and had 12 top-five finishes, again the best of the year.

Not bad for a 20-year-old, and having just missed out this time he will recognise that the one player to beat him did so by producing unbeatable golf, and that he must work even harder, as Westwood has these past few years, to get the biggest rewards.

Golf is not supposed to be as easy as Rory makes it look at times, and I doubt whether he realises yet how difficult it can be for other players.

As he gains more experience I see every aspect of his game improving, as it has done since he turned professional.

Over the past couple of years he has been spending more time in the gym and is getting stronger. He will also have noticed how a new level of fitness has helped Westwood get the best out of himself at the age of 36, with better yet to come.

While Lee puts his feet up, Rory has teamed up with Graeme McDowell in China and they are determined to take the World Cup back to Ireland.

Among their biggest rivals are the Spanish duo of Sergio Garcia and Gonzalo Fernandez-Castaño, and if you like dark horses look no further than Italy’s Molinari brothers – Francesco, who finished 14th in the Race to Dubai, and Edoardo who dominated this year’s European Challenge Tour.

But don’t count out Liang Wen-chong and Zhang Lian-wei who will have huge support as they chase a famous home win for a nation that is already the world’s fastest growing market for golf.

Former European and US Tour player Philip Parkin (www.philparkin.com) is a member of the TV golf commentary team for the BBC in the UK and Golf Channel in the US.



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