Sep24 Westwood wins at Belfry

Lee Westwood produced a brilliant final round of 65 to win the British Masters and become only the seventh player to reach £10 million prize money on the European Tour.

Westwood, 34, was in dazzling form at The Belfry on Sunday as his seven under par round gave him a five-stroke victory over Ian Poulter.

The former European number one started the day two strokes off the lead but his round featured a 40-foot birdie putt on the 16th and then a 30-footer for eagle at the 564-yard 17th.

It was Westwood’s 29th career title and he admitted it was one of the best rounds of his career

“I’ve driven it as good as I ever have and holed the putts when I needed to,” he said.

“I’m pretty emotional and feeling very happy – I hardly put a foot wrong out there. The British Masters is a great title on the European Tour and it was one of those I was building up to.”

Westwood joins Colin Montgomerie, Ernie Els, Retief Goosen, Padraig Harrington, Darren Clarke and Bernhard Langer in taking his earnings as a member of the circuit through the 10 million pounds barrier.

He had gone four years without a win until May this year and fell from fourth in the rankings to outside the top 250.

Now Westwood sits top of the Ryder Cup points table and it will be a major surprise if he needs another wild card come the end of the qualifying race next year.

His work with former Tour colleague Mark Roe which has helped improved his short game was crucial to his resurgence.

“I reeled off the shots like I was on the range,” Westwood said. “I wanted to stop the rot of getting into contention and not winning and the key to that was going out and enjoying it rather than putting too much expectation on myself.”