Monday, July 19th, 2010 
Laura
Westwood remains nearly man of the majors
World No.3 finishes second at Open Championship but edges closer to win
Lee Westwood remained the nearly man of golf's major championships at St Andrews, with yet another second-place finish.
The Nottinghamshire golfer racked up his fourth top three finish in five majors at the 150th Anniversary Open Championship, finishing seven strokes behind winner Louis Oosthuizen.
However, the Englishman believes his near-misses prove he is edging ever closer to that elusive major victory.
"Hopefully it's about three weeks away at the USPGA," said Westwood after carding a birdie on the last to finish nine-under-par for the tournament. "I can't do much more than I'm already doing."
Having finished fourth at Royal Troon in 2004, third at Turnberry last year and second at St Andrews last weekend, the law of averages would suggest that his much-longed for win is just around the corner.
Despite missing a few crucial putts, Westwood refused to blame his putting for his failure to launch a challenge against Oosthuizen.
"I'm not reading too much into my putting," he said. "You're putting from a long way away most of the time and I would say I have only missed three or four I'd have expected to hole. Not anywhere close enough to get to Louis."
Westwood also had nothing but praise for the new champion from South Africa.
"He's obviously got a lot of bottle," he said. "This is the first time that he's been in contention at a major and he's tackled everything that's been thrown at him like an old pro.
"I think it shows how strong golf is in depth. It was a slightly surprising win when Graeme McDowell won the US Open last month and it shows that the younger players coming through now are capable of going straight into majors and winning them."
Meanwhile, Paul Casey, the man who stood the best chance of beating Oosthuizen going into Sunday's final round, admitted that he never felt he was going to catch the South African.
"I felt like I needed to play a great three, four-under-par round coming in, and if he made mistakes or got very unlucky, then maybe it's still on," he said. "Louis playing tremendous golf got in the way this week. No-one was going to stop him. He was superb."
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Murrayshall Golf Club
The worst kept secret in golf is finally out. Tiger Woods will play in this year’s Ryder Cup, captain Corey Pavin having elected to give the embattled 14-time major winner one of his four wild cards.
No great surprise there. As poor a season as he has had by his own high standards, compared to the rest of the guys ... 
