Westwood is paired with Tiger Woods and Ernie Els at Pebble Beach
The Englishman will tee off at Pebble Beach on Thursday in sparkling form having won last week's St Jude Classic and finished second in April's Masters.
And he will hope his fine run continues at the scene of his fifth-place finish in the tournament 10 years ago.
"It's probably my favourite golf course in the world so I'm obviously delighted to be back and very excited," he said.
"I've played here in the US Open in 2000 - I played OK," added the Worksop golfer. "I was okay for a couple practice rounds before the St Jude at Memphis last week, so I've had a good look at the golf course."
Westwood adopted a similar preparation at the year's first major at Augusta National in April when he finished second to Phil Mickelson, and clearly believes in his new thorough approach.
"There was only me here," Westwood added. "I played 18 holes Sunday morning, nine holes in the afternoon, then 18 holes Monday morning and went to Memphis in the afternoon.
"I don't recall going to a US Open venue and practising before anybody's really got here, so it's just something that I decided to do this year."
"I did it for the Masters and it was successful there. So I figured I better do it for the US Open as well.
British hopes of a maiden major win for Westwood have gathered momentum ever since he reached a career-high of world number three in May following top three finishes in his last three majors.
And that anticipation grew that little bit more last week when he beat Robert Karlsson and Robert Garrigus in a three-way play-off for his first US Tour title in 12 years - even if his victory was heavily aided by Garrigus's triple-bogey on the par-four 18th when the American needed only a six to win.
No US Open winner, however, has ever won on the PGA Tour a week before their victory, although Westwood is unperturbed by this statistic and has insisted he is not weighed down by the weight of expectation.
"I like being competitive before a major championship, to be competitive with the tournament and boost my confidence," he told reporters.
"The most pressure comes from me and the expectations I have for what I want to do in the game of golf.
"I hate to tell you this but I don't really pay much attention to what you lot write and think.
"So the main challenge is fulfilling my own expectations and especially over the last couple of years I've been putting myself in a position to win a major and feel like I ought to be expected to win a major now."
Irishman Padraig Harrington had laboured under the burden of a similar 'nearly-man' tag before he won the first of his three majors at the 2007 Open in Carnoustie.
He reclaimed his Open title the following year and also won the 2008 PGA Championship.
The Dubliner, though, feels the time is right to resume his major-haul.
"It's been six majors since I won or so, 2008. So I'm pretty keen to try and get another win," stated Harrington. "When you win tournaments like that you want to get out there and win another one. And it feels like a long time, even though, as I said, it's really not that many events.
"Obviously I haven't won any sort of regular events, either, but at times I can be distracted at those events and maybe focusing my goals elsewhere.
"But certainly a win would be nice. It would be great if it's this week but any win would be nice. It's kind of overdue at this stage, yes."
After four top-10 finishes in Europe and the US this season, Harrington's season was interrupted last month by knee surgery.
He returned to action with a first-round 65 in Memphis but struggled over the next 54 holes to eventually finish 13 shots off the play-off contenders.
Harrington has insisted, though, that his healing knee has not adversely affected his game.
"The knee's responded well, I'm comfortable, while it needs a certain amount of minding and I have to look after it, it's not posing any problem to me playing golf," he commented.
"It needs me to ice it and get physio on it and to do my exercises and all that sort of stuff but it's not affecting my golf."
No comments:
Post a Comment