Lee Westwood has labelled the European tour guidelines as ”military-style” and heaped praises on the organisers ahead of the Betfred British Masters. Strict guidelines have been put in place for the Masters hosted by Close House for the second time in 4 years. He has called upon the golfers, caddies and media staff to abide by these regulations to ensure the smooth running od the event, Players have been subject to strict coronavirus testing to ensure that there is no spike in coronavirus numbers in the region.
“We’ve taken all precautions,” said Westwood. “The last two weeks in Austria have been quite successful in terms of people testing positive, I don’t think anybody did. The last thing we want is to make the situation worse and be the cause of more cases. We have this Golf for Good initiative where we are giving back to the communities we play in, we don’t want to be making that worse by starting off a corona spike in these communities. So it’s up to us to be very careful and, from what I’ve witnessed, people are sticking to it by the letter.
“I was amazed at the system the European Tour has set up. We all got tested before we travelled to events, and once at the event, the testing procedure has been very thorough. Everyone on site who has been through it can only have found it impressive. It’s military-style, almost. They seem to have thought of everything. All the queuing up, different numbers to put into the system, getting checked every day whether you have symptoms and things like that. They just seem to be covering everything and there’s not a moment in the day where it doesn’t feel like your health is being checked or somebody has got an eye on you.”
Westwood said that it was an easy decision to commit to hosting duties rather than travel to the US and endure two weeks of quarantine before preparing for the St. Jude Invitational. The former World number 1 also said he was unsure of participating in the US Open later this year. “Nobody wants to miss majors or World Golf Championships, but it wasn’t that hard of a decision,” Westwood added. “I had made a commitment to Close House, Betfred and the European Tour to host this week so if I make a commitment, I always try and stick by it wherever I can.”
