ESPN.com - Golf Online - British Open 2000 - Westwood prepares for Old challenge

By Robert Millward
Associated Press
Tuesday, July 18

ST. ANDREWS, Scotland -- Lee Westwood's form coming into the British Open is almost as impressive as what Tiger Woods has shown.


	Darren Clarke and Lee Westwood carry the hopes of many local fans.

If only this Open weren't at St. Andrews.

While Woods won the U.S. Open by 15 strokes following four other tournament wins and three seconds, Westwood has won three titles since May 21, placed second and fourth, and come in fifth behind the record-setting Woods at Pebble Beach.

He just doesn't perform well at the home of golf.

The burly Englishman tied for 93rd when the Open was last here in 1995 and has a poor record when playing on England's team in the Dunhill Cup over the same course.

"Oh, I've loved it," he said on Tuesday with deliberate irony. "I've never played particularly well around here, so that's probably why I've not enjoyed it so much."

Westwood, who won the Deutsche Bank tournament in Germany in May, the European Grand Prix at Slaley Hall, England, and the European Open at Dublin, hasn't hit a ball in competition since those last two back-to-back victories.

He skipped the Loch Lomond tournament in Scotland last week to prepare for the Open in a different way.

"It's the first time I have missed a tournament a week before the Open," he said before going out for his first practice round. "Yeah, that might be the right thing to do for me.

"I hit a few balls on Wednesday, Thursday, Saturday and Sunday. I just kept my eye in, stopped myself from getting rusty. I played nine holes one day, that was about it."

Westwood said he has been playing so well he doesn't want to do anything to spoil it as he tries to become the first English winner of the Open since Nick Faldo won his third title in 1992.

All he has to do is master the Old Course at notoriously windy St. Andrews.

"Stay out of bunkers -- that will be the main point of the week," he said. "Then it all depends on the wind, really -- which way it blows, how strong it blows.

"A lot around here is determined by the strength of the wind and how they tuck the flag positions away, really. If it gets windy and they tuck them away, it can be very tricky because you have 50-, 60-foot putts all day."