This report was written after Lee shot a startling 61 on his way to win the Deutsche Bank SAP open.....
FROM MEL WEBB IN HAMBURG
THE lights went out over Gut Kaden last night, shot into millions of fragments by a horde of rampaging golfers. The scoreboard team at the Deutsche Bank SAP Open ran out of red numbers, spectators gorged themselves on a birdie feast of Babylonian proportions and, by the by, Lee Westwood had a 61.
There are few more enthralling sights in European golf than Westwood in full flight, and he was at his majestic best here. He had an eagle and eight birdies to break the course record by two strokes and could even afford to miss four putts from inside eight feet. It was a magnificent round - but easily the most amazing thing about it was that it was not good enough to put him in the lead.
Westwood finished alongside O'Meara on 199, 17 under par; better than good, better, even, than brilliant, but not better than Paul Broadhurst or Darren Clarke, the joint leaders on 198. But as well as they both played, they were unable to shift the focus from Westwood.
His 11-under par is the best of this European Tour season by two shots and was rendered even more the stuff of dreams by the fact that Westwood went in to the round in a turmoil induced by what he percieved as his lack of form on the greens.
So at odds was he with his regular putter that he changed it for another before his round, but the replacement was initially no kinder to him at the start. He even resorted to putting with his left hand below right at the 2nd. He missed an eight-foot putt for a birdie on the 1st hole, so , full of self-loathing with his putting stroke, he wnt cack-handed at the next - and this time missed from five feet for another birdie.
"I was disgusted with myself," he said. "I just couldn'tsee where the next putt was coming from at that point." He was not left to ponder the conundrum for too long, for he holed a 12-footer on the next for a birdie, sank another from 15-feet at the 5th and then saw his 35-foot effort for eagle disappear at the long 6th. Quite suddenly, all his angst had been blown away.
He reached the turn in 31 and was happy. He then played the next nine in 30 and was even happier. Westwood, being a calm and level-headed individual,was not overwhelmed by a sense of his own brilliance after the lowest round of his career - and long may it continue to be so modest - but even he was forced to admit that, with just the merest touch of luck, he might have comfortably beaten the psychologically daunting figure of 60.
Westwood may never have a better chance of joining the elite band of 59ers. "If you're going to shoot 59 you've got to hole everything," he said. "Today, it could honestly have been 57 or even 56, but I don't feel too hard done by. You don't shoot 61 every day." Or even every week of the month, or every month of the year, he might have added.
The two leaders could not match Westwood's magician's touch on the greens - Broadhurst had 29 putts, Clarke 31 - but they had started from a more solid platform. Five ahead of Westwood at the start of the day, they played no better and no worse than they might have expected on thse holding greens.
"You have to be very lucky to break 60," Broadhurst said. "Lee must have putted brilliantly, although he says he missed four putts from inside eight feet, I'm sure he holed a few from outside that, too. In any round you have to take the rough with the smooth." On this day, Westwood was too busy taking the smooth to worry unduly about the rough.
As Broadhurst and the rest waxed, so did Montgomerie suffer a terminal wane. Monty was in a brown study from first drive to last putt in the sticky north-German air. He has been complaining all week of tiredness and his level par-72 was clearly the effort of a weary man.
Monty, the warmest of pre-tournament favourites, is eight shots off the lead as the event goes in to it's final day. There are perhaps 10 players, apart from the principle 4, who have a chance to make a bid for victory today. This time, the all-conquering Scot is surely not one of them.
