Lee Westwood - Ryder Cup Team Europe

Lee Westwood is one of the few Golfers to have won Tournaments on every continent, including the European PGA and the US PGA tours. He has been named ‘Player of the Year’ for the 1998 and 2000 seasons. He also won the Order of Merit for the year 2000 too. He has represented Europe for the last five Ryder Cups and spent 150 weeks in the World’s Top Ten Golfers, between 1998-2001. Although the recent form has been on the lean side, Lee has counced back in 2008 and finds himself, once again in the World’s Top 20. His excellent third place in the recent US Open, behind Tiger Woods and Rocco Mediate, underlined Lee's resurgence. This success followed another excellent third, achieved in the Irish Open, where he broke the course record. The US Ryder Cup Team should watch out.

He started playing golf at the age of 13 and his playing partner at the time was his Dad who had also taken up the sport. Amazingly the sport seemed to be second nature to him and he won the Nottinghamshire Junior Championship. From there he went from strength to strength, winning the Peter McEvoy trophy for amateurs and then in 1993 he won the British Youth Championship. He turned Professional in 1993.

His first Profresional Tournament win came in 1996, when he won The Volvo Scandinavian Masters. He followed this victory up with a victory in Japan in the same year. 1997 was a great year for him, he defended his title in Japan, won the Malaysian Open, the Volvo Masters in Spain and the Australian Open, where he beat Greg Norman in a play off. He also had great Ryder Cup success that year and partnered Nick Faldo. The only question mark over Lee Westwod, lies in the fact that he has made little impact in Major Tournaments.

,p> His lean spell came soon after the birth of his son in 2001. He also spent time with David Leadbetter remodelling his swing. This spell has obviously been good to him because he has returned to Golf in much better shape. He had two wins last year, that put him back into the top 50 in the World. He finished the year off in great style, finishing in the top ten in his last five events. 2008 season has also got off to a great start and he now sits comfortably back in the world’s top 20 players.

Lee made his Ryder Cup debut in 1997 where he partnered fellow Englishman Nick Faldo in both set of fourbals and foursomes. In the 1999 Ryder Cup, Westwood partnered Darren Clarke for the fourballs and foursomes, picking up 2 points. At the Belfry in 2002 Lee teamed up with Sergio García in a successful partnership in which they won 3 and lost 1 of their four matches. In the 2004 Ryder Cup, Westwood sank the putt which took Europe's points tally to 14 and thereby ensured that it would retain the Cup. (If the matches had finished 14–14, Europe would have retained the Cup as the holder.) Europe would eventually win 18½–9½. It was his first victory in singles. He and Darren Clarke were the wildcard selections in 2006 and Westwood justified his selection by not losing a game, a feat he had also achieved in 2004. He is the eighth most successful European golfer on points scored, with the second highest scoring rate He has also never been rested from a session in the Ryder Cup.