Westwood not risking top spot

LEE WESTWOOD has strengthened his place at the top of the world rankings and re-ignited his bid to retain the European Tour’s Race to Dubai order of merit by finishing a stroke behind Francesco Molinari in the HSBC World Championship in Shanghai.

However, it seems the English man is placing the first of those well ahead of the second given he hasn’t entered either the $6m (€4.3m) Barclays Singapore Open beginning on Thursday or next week’s Hong Kong Open.

Accordingly, Westwood would need to win the Dubai World Championship (November 25-28) to remain European number one for the second successive year and hope that current pacesetters Martin Kaymer and Graeme McDowell finish well down the field.

Even though he failed to maintain his outstanding run of form through August and September with poor finishes in the Andalucia Open and in Shanghai, Kaymer remains the man to catch with €3,207,229. He is followed by McDowell on €2,675,423; Westwood, €2,362,143 and Francesco Molinari, €2,201,614.

While Kaymer and McDowell have entered for Singapore, the Irishman then heads to Hong Kong where there’s a purse of $2.5m (€1.7m) and an opportunity of narrowing the gap on the German who skips that event.

This week’s Singapore tournament is unusual in that it is being played over two courses, Serapong and Tanjong, with a field of 204 as against the customary 156. It is the joint richest on the European Tour outside of the major and world championships although it still isn’t enough to attract Westwood and Rory McIlroy, to name but two leading members of the European Tour.

Barclays are one of Phil Mickelson’s major sponsors and accordingly the gifted left hander is in the field and has the opportunity to provide some consolation for American fans after Europeans filled the leading five positions in Shanghai.

Ian Poulter defends the title and along with Kaymer, McDowell and Mickelson, the event has attracted Francesco Molinari; the brilliant young Italian Matteo Manaserro and the talented but under achieving Australian Adam Scott.

Pádraig Harrington also tees it up, desperately hoping to avoid the disasters that cost him dearly in Singapore. The event was a mixed bag for the Dubliner who had that rarest of birds, an albatross two at the 14th on Saturday, while he also eagled the 18th in the second round. However, he once again failed to keep double bogeys off his card with the seven he ran up at the 18th on Sunday proving particularly costly.

As a consequence, he has dropped a spot in the world rankings to 20th. The other Irish in the Singapore field are Darren Clarke, Peter Lawrie, Damien McGrane, Shane Lowry, Paul McGinley, Michael Hoey and Gary Murphy.

Harrington, 18th in the money list with €1,108,967; Clarke (28th, 820,890), McGrane (32nd, 736,83) and Lawrie (35th, 711,805) are safely within the top 60 who will contest the lucrative season-ending Dubai World Championship.

Shane Lowry is 62nd having failed to capitalise on making the cut in each of his last five tournaments and needs at least one big finish in the next fortnight to make it to Dubai.

Meanwhile, Tiger Woods heads to Melbourne for the Australian Masters on Thursday. He has done so as defending champion but only too well aware that the corresponding tournament 12 months ago sparked the scandal that was to destroy his life when a woman, Rachel Uchitel, travelled surreptitiously from the United States to stay at Woods’s hotel, the Melbourne’s Crown Plaza.

“What no one knew was that the National Enquirer was aware of the plan and sent a reporter to track them”, wrote Steve Helling in his book, “Tiger, The Real Story. “After the reporter watched Rachel check into the hotel, the Enquirer editors decided they had enough material to run a story.”

They duly did so and what ensued is history. Woods hasn’t won in the intervening 12 months and is no longer the game’s number one player. Geoff Ogilvy, Sergio Garcia and Camilo Villegas are among those in the field.