US PGA Championship / Ralph Ellis / 12 August 2009 / Leave a Comment

Ralph Ellis urges you to snap up the big price available on his new bezzie mate's US PGA tilt...

One of the problems of getting to know sports stars is that it tends to skew your view of their potential and performance. It's too easy to make excuses for the mistakes of the ones you like, or get over optimistic about what they might to do. So perhaps this column should come with a bit of a health warning because I have to say I really warmed to Lee Westwood when he was the subject Betfair's Big Interview just before the Open.

But even allowing for that bias, it strikes me that a price of [8.6] for him to finish in the top five of the US PGA, which starts at Hazeltine tomorrow, is a bit of a bargain. And there are good, solid reasons to back that up.

The fantastic battle between Tiger Woods and Padraig Harrington in the last round of the Bridgestone Invitational on Sunday has naturally captured all the golf headlines since. Tiger, unusually, has courted controversy by slamming British referee John Paramor for putting the pair of them on the clock and, in his view, influencing the outcome by putting Harrington under too much pressure. Woods normally worries only about his own performance, but for two days running he's niggled away at Paramor, blaming him for the way the Irishman rushed at the 16th where the wheels off his challenge fell off so spectacularly.

And for backers of Westwood, that debate has come in rather handy because it's meant nobody has noticed the way the Englishman finished that tournament. For the record he shot 65 on Sunday, birdied four of the last seven holes, and but for a bad start on day one of the tournament would have been right up with the leaders.

Westwood has been written off as another nearly man after last hole errors at Turnberry cost him The Open. But you can actually view his whole tournament in a completely different way. He turned up suffering a chest infection so serious it nearly made him walk off on day one, but he hung in and carded a decent score. Then over three days he stayed right with the pace. And when he did make an error on the last of 72 holes it was because - wrongly as it turned out - he was being aggressive and going for a long putt because he believed nothing less than sinking it would be good enough to win.

Crucially, there's a sense that Westwood has come to terms quickly with what happened at Turnberry, and taken the lessons from it. "If I get into the same position again I will know how to deal with it better. For 71 holes I just played my own game and then I did something different. Another time I'll play the course and nothing else for all 72", he has said.

Back to that Betfair Big Interview, and Westwood finished it by backing himself each way with our charity bet to win The Open. At the time his odds were [40.0] to win and [7.0] for the top five finish, so the Manchester Children's Hospital will have done very nicely out of it. Foolishly, despite being impressed by him, I didn't take the same bet myself. It might be too late, but this time he's definitely getting some Ellis money behind him for the US PGA - and if it wins I'll send some to the Children's Hospital myself!

Five things you might not know about Lee Westwood

1. He was 13 before he started playing golf when his grandfather bought him a half set as a birthday present. His dad took up the sport at the same time to learn with him. Within two years he was county junior champion

2. It's well known he's a Nottingham Forest fan and was a decent junior footballer - he was also a good cricketer and had trials for the County team as a batsman

3. His putting coach Paul Hurrion began his career as a cricket analyst into the biomechanics of fast bowlers

4. He co-owns a private jet with Darren Clarke

5. His new fitness regime, that includes strength conditioning, has added an average 12 yards extra distance to his drive

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