Westwood looks to keep rolling in Spain

Lee Westwood is favourite for this week’s Volvo World Match Play Championship in Spain – and with good reason.

Winner of the Portugal Masters two weeks ago, top of the European Tour money list and up to fifth in the world, Westwood has had eight top 10 finishes in nine tournaments since the start of July.

Compare that to his three opponents in the group stage of the new-look event at Finca Cortesin near Marbella. They have each managed just one top 10 in the same time.

Fellow Englishman Ross Fisher has missed his last two halfway cuts and has hardly figured since crashing out of the lead with a quadruple bogey eight early on the last day of The Open at Turnberry.

Indian Jeev Milkha Singh, against whom Westwood opens tomorrow, came seventh in America earlier this month, but before that his last top 10 was in early June - and he had to pull out of the tournament in Arizona last week because of a foot problem.

This time last year Camilo Villegas was seventh in the world and had just won the last two events of the US Tour’s FedEx Cup play-off series.