Lee Westwood will reluctantly relinquish his Race to Dubai title this week but is struggling to separate the two contenders to his crown.
Westwood won the Dubai World Championship presented by DP World to claim the inaugural Race to Dubai but even after an impressive season to date which has seen him rise to World Number One, the Englishman cannot catch race leader Martin Kaymer despite the $7.5million prize fund on offer.
And while he will be doing his utmost to retain the Dubai World Championship title over the Earth Course at Jumeirah Golf Estates, he knows either Kaymer or Graeme McDowell will be crowned European Number One on Sunday night.
“I'm not going to lose sleep over it, but I would liked to have had a chance to defend the European crown this week,” said Westwood, who admitted he would still have a “slight grin” as World Number One.
“It would have made it more exciting for everybody I guess; the more people involved in the actual race.”
But as he is out of the equation, which of the two main protagonists does he think will take Europe’s crown?
“I've been asked to nominate The European Tour Weekly Golfer of the Year and I was thinking about it going around, and it's very difficult to separate them. They both have won a Major. Martin has won four titles to Graeme’s three. Martin's leading the money list, but Graeme probably had a little bit better Ryder Cup and holed the winning putt.
“So, you know, without going into it even more than that, how do you separate them? I guess it's all on this week.”
Westwood shot a blistering 23 under par total last year to take the title and deny Rory McIlroy the Race to Dubai accolade, but is conscious of not getting carried away with the memories of 12 months ago.
“I have to be careful this week not to get caught up in trying to achieve what I achieved last year, because it was a fairly special tournament and I played obviously near flawless golf I think. You know, getting caught up in that, I could really set my expectations too high for this week.
“Over the next day or so, I've got to formulate another game plan to try and make it as good as last year's.
“The fact that I've got so many good memories from last year, I could really lose a sense of what I want to do out there and how I want to perform. I could get caught up in sort of 15 under at this stage last year and all that sort of thing. It's a new canvas I think, and have to try to put a new painting down on it.”
