Lee Westwood turned up the heat on fellow Briton Luke Donald in the race for the world number one spot by sprinting five shots clear of the field after the Indonesian Masters third round on Saturday. Former number one Westwood showed his class in the Asian Tour event at the Royale Jakarta Golf Club with a scorching 66 including eight birdies and two bogeys. The Englishman, who had a spell at the summit of the rankings until being dislodged by Germany’s Martin Kaymer this year, will return to the top if he wins here and Donald fails to land the Heritage title in South Carolina on Sunday.
Westwood, who turns 38 on Sunday, started with a hat-trick of birdies in the third round and credited his improved performance on the greens to a hot putter. “It feels much better because every decent putt seems to go in and that made me more comfortable,” said the former European number one who switched from a belly putter to a conventional version after the first round.
“I’ve been in this position before and I’ll try not to get ahead of myself,” he told reporters. Westwood, who returned on Saturday morning to complete two holes from his previous round, dropped shots on the fourth and 18th as he finished with a 16-under total of 200. “I hit the ball really well and made some good putts. It was a shame to bogey the last and every time you drop a shot on the last you feel disappointed but a 66 is a good score,” he said. “I like the golf course. It seems to be setting up nicely for me and I’ve been hitting it well. My iron play has been accurate and you can only have accurate iron play when you hit a lot of fairways.” Park Hyun-bin (70) of South Korea and Thailand’s Thitiphun Chuayprakong (69) were joint second on 205.
