Lee Westwood’s dream of third-consecutive win at Nedbank Challenge ends
Lee Westwood ended this season’s Nedbank Golf Challenge four positions lower than he had been hoping for.
Westwood began the day comfortably putting an even-par, following it up with a birdie on the generous par-5 second.
He engineered a drive of the Titleist golf ball with a firm 20-foot putt on the par-3 hole number four. Charl Schwartzel of South Africa followed that closely.
On the seventh hole, Westwood teed off brilliantly that left him with only six feet to birdie. The move eventually failed to convert, and on the next hole, he bogeyed for the first (but not the last) time in the round.
On the ninth hole, Schwartzel teed off strong, hoping for an eagle which culminated in a lip-out instead. The birdie there, nonetheless, finally put him ahead of the Westwood contention.
Westwood, meanwhile, could only pull off a distasteful three-putt par. By the tenth and 11th holes, Westwood could not believe his bad luck.
He missed a superb chance to birdie on the former, and with only 12 feet to birdie the latter. His putt shaved the hole as it passed unassumingly to the left, leaving the maddened Westwood no choice but to settle for an even par.
Westwood made a birdie on the 13th. Despite the excellent drive, by that time into the game, there was little hope for the defending champion’s dream of three-consecutive wins at the Challenge.
By the 14th hole, the double-bogey mess substantiated that shattered dream. From there on in to the end of the competition, the Englishman’s ball-striking crumbled to two bogeys on sixteen and eighteen.
Thus, concluded Westy’s delusions of grandeur. An official website update said it may as well have been the proudest moment in his sporting career had he won the trophy three times in succession.
Nevertheless, since the Challenge last December, he has had joined the list of players to have had successfully defended their Nedbank titles.
That list includes the likes of Seve Ballesteros, David Frost, Nick Price, Ernie Els, and Jim Furyk.
Lee now plans a trip to Thailand. The Thailand Golf Championship tees off on the 6th of December this year.
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