THE MODERATOR: Let's welcome to the media center Lee Westwood, co-captain of Majesticks GC. Lee, 4-under 67, currently tied for first after round 1. Please speak on today's conditions out there and how you feel about the first round.
LEE WESTWOOD: Yeah, it was tricky out there. This course is taking no prisoners today. It was very firm, and obviously the wind has picked up a little bit, so there was some real tough holes out there, some good tee shots where you really had to commit to a line and go for it, really.
It's nice to play a golf course that's as demanding as this.
Q. Coming off of last week, I believe it was your first tournament of the LIV Golf season. Now you're at the top of the leaderboard. How are you feeling about the state of your game and entering this season?
LEE WESTWOOD: I suppose a little surprised. Last week was the first time I've played in six months in a tournament, and obviously I missed the first couple of tournaments this season because I tore the tendon in my wrist, so I had to rehab that for five or six weeks, and really, five or six days before last week's tournament was the first time I actually started hitting a few drivers and hitting it almost flat out. So I didn't really know what to expect last week, but played well. Fortunately Hong Kong is not that long, so I could kind of cruise around it and not be too aggressive.
Seven weeks ago, I couldn't hold the putter. The specialist was worried that I'd torn the sheath in the wrist and I would need surgery to reconstruct it. To be sitting here, having had a good week last week and then be leading this week is a very pleasant surprise.
Q. How impressive to go around this course bogey-free? I think there were only two of them today.
LEE WESTWOOD: Well, very impressive, I'd say. There's a lot of trouble out there. You don't have to get much out of position for it to become tricky. Obviously you do get it in the rough, the rough is not that long, but it is flying rough. You lose a lot of control over the golf ball.
But the golf course is in incredible condition. The greens are some of, if not the best I've ever seen, certainly in Asia but anywhere, really. There's no excuse for missing putts on these greens. You start them on line, they really do hold the line and stay true.
I started last week with no bogeys the first round. It's a good habit to get into, really, first round with no bogeys. But this week feels better because the golf course is so demanding.
Q. Is there any ramifications with the tendon? Do you feel any pain? Are there any limitations?
LEE WESTWOOD: Yeah, I know it's still not right. It feels -- as the round goes on, it gets achy. It's like doing a workout in the gym; you get to the end of the workout, your muscles are aching. So after hitting nearly a round's worth of shots, it takes to ache a little bit.
But the best way to do that is to hit less shots and shoot lower scores. I'm having to sort of monitor how much practice I do and how many balls I hit in the warmup, try and save it all for the golf course really, which is not a bad thing this week with the heat.
Q. Obviously the physical part aside, is there any benefit to having that length of time off mentally?
LEE WESTWOOD: Yeah, I suppose I was fresh coming out, but I would rather have been able to carry on with my schedule after the teams week. I had done some good prep before that in Miami, and I had planned a week to 10 days in Dubai prior to Saudi, and all that went out the window because two weeks before Saudi I did this. That was clubs down, and you don't really want to come into competitive golf having had four weeks where you can't even lift the golf club up.
Fresh, yes, but not ideal.
Q. Was there one specific incident that caused it?
LEE WESTWOOD: Yeah, I was in my simulator at home and I forgot I was nearly 53, thinking I was 23, and tried to get up to 180 mile an hour ball speed and was off the floor hitting it, and just on my follow-through I felt something kind of click or pop. It was me, tearing my old tendons. I'll hit it smoother from now on.
Q. Lee, you tend to do well in this part of the world, and I know for a fact that you've won in Malaysia. What is it about Asia that makes you actually play well?
LEE WESTWOOD: I don't know. I've been coming here for a long time. As you say, I've won in Malaysia, but my first trip to Malaysia was Templer Park in 1994 or 1995, I think. So I've been coming to Malaysia, Thailand, here, Indonesia, Japan and I've had a lot of wins in all those countries. I've felt comfortable right from the very off coming to Asia.
A lot of people, they have a little bit of a culture shock, but I've always loved it here and enjoyed coming back. The golf courses have steadily improved over the years in Asia and the players too. It's somewhere where I feel comfortable, even with the extra heat this week. I tend to be able to cope with it well.
Q. You mentioned earlier that you've kind of surprised yourself with the form that you were in in Hong Kong and now in Singapore. What do you think has clicked or allowed you to be in such good form right now, especially coming off that injury?
LEE WESTWOOD: It's not surprised me that I'm playing well because I did a lot of good work in the off-season and I was starting to swing a golf club a lot better and getting in good positions, and I'd worked hard on my short game. That was much better.
I've started to putt a lot better, as well. What's surprised me was the fact that I'd come in so cold and injured, you wouldn't expect to -- well, last week, left a war zone, turned up late with jet lag, no practice round, injury. There's no real points there pointing the way to playing well. To actually play well, that's where it was quite a surprise, but not because of the form I'm in, because I felt like coming -- at the start of the season before I got injured, I felt like I was swinging it really well.
Q. You played with Louis Oosthuizen. To see him finding some form recently, how was that?
LEE WESTWOOD: Louis is still very impressive. He's very steady, got a great sort of game for this golf course. Putts nicely. It's always a pleasure to play with Louis. He's pretty calm all the time, and he's a good playing companion. I think when people -- David started off very well, as well. He was leading after a few holes.
I think when a whole group gets into that rhythm you can sometimes bring each other along.
Q. Going from Asia to Africa now next week, what are you looking forward to there, in the African continent and Johannesburg?
LEE WESTWOOD: Yeah, very excited to be going back to South Africa. Always played well down there. I've won three Nedbanks and a Dimension Data, and once again, it's somewhere else that I've played well in the past. I seem to play well on that kind of grass and in that heat, although I believe it's just going to be warm, as in instead of really warm. But it's a golf course I've never played before, so I'm excited to see the golf course, as well.
I have a lot of friends down in South Africa and always have a lot of support. It's good to be going back.
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