Westwood upset at tour schedule

Lee Westwood has accused the European Tour of “mismanagement” of their 2007 schedule after missing this week’s Volvo Masters.

A two-time winner on the Tour this year, Westwood will not take part in the season-ending event in Valderrama, having already committed himself to the Asian Tour’s Barclays Singapore Open, which is being played at the same time.

The 34-year-old, currently 10th on the European Order of Merit, said: “I committed to playing in Asia very early on this year and I committed to play in the Singapore Open a long time ago as well, so the mismanagement on behalf of the European Tour as far as dates coinciding was very disappointing from my perspective.

“Hopefully that will be corrected in years to come and I will be able to play in the last couple of events of the European season.”

The dates for the 2007 Singapore Open were announced in May last year, several months before the European Tour released its schedule for the season.

Although Westwood was disappointed to miss out on the Volvo Masters, he claimed he had never considered pulling out of the Singapore event, which boasts a purse of US$4m (€2.77m).

“Once I sign a contract, I plan to stick to my word,” the world number 31 added.

“I’m not pleased to miss the Volvo Masters this week. I’d like to have played in both the Singapore Open and Volvo Masters because they’re good tournaments and hopefully that can be corrected in the future.”

Asian Tour executive chairman Kyi Hla Han admitted it was unfortunate the dates of the two tournaments had clashed.

“The view of the Asian Tour was that we had set a date for the Barclays Singapore Open a lot earlier and it was just unfortunate that, at that time, the European Tour had not set a date for the Volvo Masters of Europe,” said Han.

“They had their schedule with their courses and we had ours and it was just an unfortunate incident and a lot of it had to do with star player availability.

“Right now, we’re trying to communicate and see that this sort of thing doesn’t happen again.”

Having said that, Han was still delighted to see the event at Sentosa Golf Club attract a top-class field, with six of the top 20 players in the world including number two Phil Mickelson, number four Ernie Els and defending champions and world number six Adam Scott.

“It’s good to see that this tournament is a priority on their playing schedules,” Han said.

“It’s a top-class tournament which is good for us, it’s a full-field Asian Tour event and it’s great to see that they are coming over and playing here.

“A lot of players look at the stature of the event, the golf course and the city that they’re visiting. If it appeals to them more than other tournaments then it’s great for us.”