Sports

Westwood still awaits major break-through

AUGUSTA, Ga. — Despair morphed into hope in one of the most unlikely places for Lee Westwood yesterday.

His chance at winning his first Masters dashed just moments earlier, Westwood sat disappointed in the scorer’s hut behind the 18th green and Phil Mickelson, the man who’d ripped the Green Jacket from his hopeful grasp, delivered some moving words to him.

“Phil was saying after we’d finished that he’d been the man that kept knocking at the door, finishing second and third and wondering if it ever opens and suddenly it does,” Westwood said after finishing three shots behind Mickelson yesterday at Augusta National. “He said winning majors becomes easier in your own mind. He said I’ve been playing some of the best golf out of anyone recently and to just keep plugging away and eventually it will happen.”

Indeed, Westwood, who entered yesterday’s final round with a one-shot lead over Mickelson (the first time he’d held a 54-hole lead in a major), has two thirds and a second-place finish in the last three majors.

“He’s one of the best players in the world and has been playing such good golf and I pull for him and hope that his major championship comes soon, because he’s such a quality individual and an incredible talent “ Mickelson said.

Partially because he was genuinely happy for Mickelson, Westwood didn’t come away from yesterday devastated. The other part is the fact that he has risen his game from the abyss of a miserable slump that left him virtually irrelevant.

“It would be frustrating if it was like seven years ago and I was 260th in the world and not knowing which end of the club to hold,” he said. “I try to take the positives out of everything. I can’t be too disappointed. I’m getting closer.”

Westwood was part of the Sunday duel in the 2008 U.S. Open at Torrey Pines, where Tiger Woods beat Rocco Mediate in a playoff. He, too, was down to the wire at last year’s British Open, falling just short of the playoff won by Stewart Cink over Tom Watson.

“I just need to keep doing what I’m doing,” Westwood said. “One of these days the door is going to open for me.”

Westwood said his spirits are buoyed by the world-class form he’s regained after his terrible slump.

“There was a time where I didn’t want to go out and play, didn’t want to go out and practice and couldn’t see the light at the end of the tunnel,” he said. “So I’ve been through that bad patch. I can appreciate what it’s like to play well better than most people.”

“So when I’m playing like this and contending for major championships, I feel like a lucky man.”