Our boys just can’t stop winning and long may it continue.
This time it was the turn of Lee Westwood to return to the winner’s circle giving us a hat trick of triumphs in successive weeks and four No. 1’s out of the last five.
It’s been a long wait for Lee to rekindle the winning habit and he did so in style at the Portugal Masters – claiming the title by two shots from Italy’s Francesco Molinari with three-time Major winner Padraig Harrington a further two back.
Lee knew that if he kept knocking on the door then the hinges would give way at some stage and there could have been no more fitting a venue than Vilamoura’s Victoria course, one of several outstanding developments in the area owned by his sponsors Oceanico.
The former European No. 1 has been one of the world’s most consistent performers for the last two years, but a win has eluded him. Now that he’s got one I expect him to keep on going because I believe his peak years will start with this his 30th worldwide success.
Congratulations not only to Lee for reaching No.5 in the world, but also to Charl Schwartzel for edging ever closer to the top 50 again thanks to his 6th place finish. Compatriot Louis Oosthuizen was 16th and Paul McGinley, Rory McIlroy and recent winner James Kingston gave us a total of six in the top 30.
With so many big tournaments still left before the end of the season, I can see us having to find some more wall space to hang our rapidly expanding gallery of winner pictures on. Happy days indeed.
Watch out for the World Matchplay in Spain next week and also The Barclays in Singapore where I think Ernie Els might be ready to celebrate his 40th birthday as well on the course as he did off it in The Bahamas last weekend.
We have a chance of a weekly double in two different continents.
Finally, a few warm words of congratulations to somebody not often mentioned in these columns. Sandeep Grewal has been with us for quite a few years searching for the missing links in his game. Well he found them in Scotand last week with a stunning victory in the PartyPoker.Com International Open at Fairmont, St.Andrews.
Ten shots behind after two rounds and heading nowhere, Sandeep picked up the £10,000 winner’s cheque at the EuroPro Tour event with a dazzling last-round 67 – the only sub-par round on a very windy day when the rest of the field shot closer to 80 than 70. Well done and keep it up.
