Westwood's run continues at Players
BY Bruce Young | US PGA Tour | 2010 The Players Championship | Round Two | 08 May 2010
Lee Westwood has continued his outstanding run of consistently good form in elite tournaments by grabbing the halfway lead at the Players Championship at the TPC Sawgrass. Westwood leads by one over Italy’s Francesco Molinari, Japan’s Ryuji Imada and late finisher Heath Slocum whose birdie at the final hole of the day moved him into a share of second.
Westwood’s rise in world golf over the past two years makes stunning reading. He has finished inside the top three in all four of the major championships in that time and won the Race to Dubai and the Dubai Championship late last year but it has been the amazing consistency he has developed that has been the highlight.
The Players Championship was not an event Westwood played well through his struggles in the 2000’s but earlier in his career he finished 5th and 6th in his first two starts in the tournament. Now back to his very best he is handling this layout with ease, his only real mistakes in his opening 36 holes coming when he missed the fairway at the 18th this morning and too bogey and when he found the water with his second at the 16th yesterday.
Westwood certainly made amends for one of the mistakes today when his second at the 16th finished 4 feet from the hole and he converted for an eagle.
Westwood explained his performances in the big events. “I try and get myself right showing up for the biggest tournaments, so that’s the major championships, the World Golf Championships and this one, and the PGA Championship at Wentworth in a couple of weeks’ time.”
“As you get older, it gets harder to peak all the time when you want to. So you have to pick and choose your ones, and you want to play well in the biggest tournaments, and this is one of the biggest tournaments. It’s nice to come out the first two days and shoot 12-under and be in contention.”
Despite his national open being played in Turin this week, Molinari is here although his brother Edoardo made the decision to play in Italy. Francesco already has his own national open title to his name and that may have been part of the thought process for him to be here. Not to mention the US$1.7 million first prize this week. Whatever happens from here it has been an impressive debut to date for him.
Most of the talk this week has been of the potential for a chance in the guard at the top of the game. If Mickelson was to win this week and Woods finishes outside the top five then Mickelson takes over Woods’ long term reign at the top of the game. Both are at 3 under and have a lot of ground to make up if either is to challenge the lead of Westwood.
“I wasn’t quite as sharp today as I was yesterday, said Woods after his round. “As I was saying to Steve over there, I was just kind of outside that birdieable range with my iron shots. I was just hitting the ball 20 feet every hole. If I could get another five feet or so closer or 10 feet closer, then those putts, you feel like you could pour all of them in. But I just seemed to be outside that range where there were more lag putts than putts I could take a run at.”
The leading Australian is Robert Allenby who although making his divorce public this week seems to be handling the situation well. Allenby followed up his opening round of 66 with 70 today and at 8 under is in a share of 6th position, four from the lead.
2006 Champion, Adam Scott is at 6 under to be in 18th position, Greg Chalmers 23rd and James Nitties 58th.
