Lee Westwood and Martin Kaymer hopeful of their performance in Qatar Masters
World number three Lee Westwood and number four Martin Kaymer will be two of the top-ranked players on the Doha Course at this week’s Commercialbank Qatar Masters.
Not only will the European duo be eager to strike early in the year and land the lucrative title but will also pose a formidable threat to the rest of the field at the star-studded gala.
Westwood, who fell from number two on the Official World Golf Rankings (OWGR), followed by a thrilling start of the season by Rory McIlroy, is battering a neck injury but has decided to persevere against the injury.
He had to struggle on the course in last week’s Abu Dhabi HSBC Golf Championship and said that the pain has gone into his elbow, causing serious changes in his swing.
Notwithstanding, he finished for an impressive joint 17th.
Westwood said, "I had a few sort of issues to negotiate. "We've been working a lot on my fitness just recently, and I haven't played a lot coming into Abu Dhabi. Didn't hole as many putts or find the greens there, a little difficult to read".
For the moment, the grizzled Englishman is all set to tame the notorious Doha Course this week in a bid to land the title early in the season.
He came out of a stunning season last year pulling in consecutive events on the closing end, the Thailand Golf Championship in December and the Nedbank Challenge where he carded his record-breaking rounds of his career.
He pulled in a third round of 62 in Nedbank Classic and another 60 at Thailand Golf Championship, the lowest round of his career.
Westwood said ahead of the Qatar Masters in Doha,
He added, "Looking forward to this week and playing a golf course I've done well in the past. Apparently the rough's not as long as it was last year, but the weather man says it's going to be fairly windy. And when it's like that around here, it's a really tough test”.
Meanwhile, Kaymer has decided to keep a low profile after a disastrous start of the season at Abu Dhabi.
The three-time winner of the event, Kaymer was the best bet ahead of last week’s star-studded event but succumbed to a dreadful round 77 on the opening day.
He never managed to come out of the early loss and missed the halfway cut. Kaymer has won the event twice in last three years and four times in the last four.
The 27-year-old German has been a blistering success on the Middle eastern turf and his devastating loss indicates a tough year ahead of the German.
He will be facing some of the grizzled veterans of both the european Tour as well as the PGA, who have flown down to compete in the event.
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