As Tiger Woods looks to make a comeback, Lee Westwood won’t let go of his rank that easily
Golf’s world number one Lee Westwood recently won the Nedbank Challenge that took place in Sun City in South Africa. Westwood won the Nedbank Challenge by eight shots and was awarded a cheque for $1,250,000. The Nedbank Challenge
is the richest tournament in golf. (Despite finishing last, Louis Oosthuizen still didn’t go home with empty pockets.) It is never an easy one to win since it features twelve of the world’s best golfers teeing off together. Out of the twelve this year, Westwood
got first place and Tim Clark and Ross Fisher finished second. Having led the tournament from the outset, Westwood showed golf fans just why he is officially the best golfer in the world.
Westy’s top rank, however, was in jeopardy this weekend when his predecessor, former world number one Tiger Woods, took the lead in the Chevron World Challenge for two rounds. Woods eventually lost to Graeme McDowell in a playoff,
but it had been a close call for Westwood – had Woods won the Chevron Challenge, and McDowell finished second, Westwood wouldn’t have been number one anymore.
Woods was doing really well in the first two rounds of the Chevron World Challenge. Hosted by Woods himself, the tournament really looked like the ‘one’ for Tiger. The 14-time major championship winner hasn’t won any tournament
this year and really wanted to make the most of his final opportunity in 2010. It was evident how hard Woods was trying, but things started going downhill for the American when Irishman McDowell banged a birdie to take a two-stroke lead.
Even though Woods lost, he liked the way he played.
"The way I'm playing right now, yeah, I would like to continue playing,” he said. “Even though I lost and made countless mistakes in the middle part of the round, it said a lot for me to come back and put my swing back together
again.”
Now that 2010 is almost over, Woods is hoping to make a comeback in 2011 and show the world that he is still the world’s best golfer.
He will, however, need to train really hard with players like Westwood competing against him. Westwood dethroned Woods on October 1st and ended his five-year-long reign as number one. Even though Westwood didn’t participate
in many events this year due to his injury, the points system favoured him and he topped the table.
Some argue that Westwood’s glory is due more to Woods’ negligence rather than this own ability. It is a fact that Woods has been going through a difficult patch personally and professionally. In November 2009, Woods’ career was
rocked by revelations of his infidelity to his wife Elin Nordegren. It was discovered that Woods had extramarital affairs with several women. With the media taking full advantage of the scandal, Woods’ image and career went down the drain. In August 2010,
he and Nordegren were divorced.
Woods has not been playing well since the scandal broke out. He posted his career-worst score when he finished with an 18 over and at 78th place at the World Golf Championships-Bridgestone Invitational. Even though Woods
has continued to participate in most golfing events, he hasn’t won a single tournament this year.
However, attributing Westwood’s success entirely to Woods’ downfall would be erroneous. Had that been the case, Phil Mickelson, who had twelve chances to dethrone Woods, would have been number one instead of Westwood. The fact
remains that Westwood has earned his position as world number one player, and is doing a good job to retain it.
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