Rankings meaningless for Westwood in matchplay format

Reuters/Marana, Arizona

SPEAKING HIS MIND: Westwood

World rankings mean nothing to Britain’s Lee Westwood as he prepares for this week’s WGC-Accenture Match Play Championship where he will compete for the first time as the game’s leading player.
Westwood deposed Tiger Woods as world number one in November but he is well aware of the vagaries of the matchplay format at an event where he has never progressed beyond the second round in 10 attempts. "There are no easy games,” the Englishman told reporters at Dove Mountain’s Ritz-Carlton Golf Club on a sunny Tuesday.
"You have the top-64 players in the world. Everybody expects the top 64 to be capable of shooting 65, 64. You get lucky in this format but you also know you have to play well.”
Westwood has compiled a 6-11 record at the elite World Golf Championships (WGC) event and would dearly love to advance beyond Thursday’s second round.
"I’m wondering what Friday looks like in this tournament,” he said with a huge grin. "I have played pretty well here and (someone) had one of those hot days against me. You occasionally run up against people that are playing well.” Westwood, a 20-times winner on the European Tour, said he felt no pressure to live up to his status as the game’s leading player.
"You guys are probably talking about it more than I am,” the 37-year-old said. "I’m fairly used to it. I’m used to not so much the tag of world number one but the demands that come with it.”