Lee Westwood admits he let down close pal and skipper Darren Clarke with Ryder Cup collapse


LEE WESTWOOD says he let Darren Clarke down after failing to score a single Ryder Cup point.

The Brit, 43, asked to be benched after playing poorly in an opening session where Europe were whitewashed 4-0 by America.

Lee Westwood
Lee Westwood admits he let down his close pal and Ryder Cup captain Darren Clarke
PA:Press Association

Ryder Cup veteran Westwood slumped to painful 18th-hole defeats in his next two outings.

And he came away from Europe’s 17-11 thumping knowing he had done nothing to justify getting a wild card from skipper Clarke.

Westy said: “I did feel like I let Darren down a little bit. I was a bit disappointed with the way that I played early on.

“I actually played some good stuff on Saturday and Sunday, but ran into a guy who caught fire in Ryan Moore.

Beef still on the menu

BEEF will still be on the menu in Europe next year — despite Andrew Johnston earning his US Tour card.

The bearded Londoner’s antics have proved a huge hit but he vowed not to turn his back on his army of fans on this side of the Atlantic.

Johnston, who is sponsored by US fast-food beef restaurant Arby’s, said: “It will be tricky trying to juggle playing in Europe and America.

“There’s no way I’d give up playing over here after the way I’ve connected with the fans.”

“Obviously I was a captain’s pick and would have liked to have performed well for him. But we sat down and chatted about it.

“He said, what could I have done differently? I said, I thought you did all you could.
“It was just one of those things.

“The American team just did to us what we have been doing to them for the last 20 years.”

Lee Westwood
Lee Westwood did not win a single point playing under Darren Clarke in the Ryder Cup
PA:Press Association

Westwood’s tenth Ryder Cup will be remembered for the putt he missed from inside three feet on the 18th in Saturday’s fourballs, when he looked certain to salvage a half point.

He admitted: “I played the last well, but I didn’t hole the putt on the last and that was disappointing.

“But I’ve missed putts before and you can’t dwell on it. I rarely lose sleep and people are always going to miss putts.

“It was a lot of pressure on that situation and was just one of those things.

“I didn’t put a good stroke on it, shoved it a bit and it didn’t go in.

“When you break it all down, if I had won the two games I was involved in that came up the 18th, we’d have lost by a point.

“So although it was a big winning margin for the US, when you look at it on paper, it’s not that big of a gap between the teams.”

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