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| October 14, 2001 | Sunday | Rajab 26, 1422 |
Woosnam, Harrington reach final
WENTWORTH (England), Oct 13: Eleven years after his last World Match Play victory, Ian Woosnam moved within sight of a third title Saturday with a crushing 10 and nine win over defending champion Lee Westwood.
The 43-year-old Welshman, who will play Ireland’s Padraig Harrington in the final, won his first title in 1987 and said he had been in the peak of his form that year.
But he will rarely have played better than this week, claiming the scalps of U.S. Open champion Retief Goosen and last year’s runner-up Colin Montgomerie before finishing off Westwood on the 27th hole of the scheduled 36-hole contest.
He collected seven birdies in an almost flawless first 18 holes in the morning to turn seven up.
Woosnam did not let up on the hapless European number one after lunch either, with birdies at the fourth, sixth and eighth as he continued to show amazing touch with his broomhandle putter.
In all, the 1991 U.S. Masters champion needed just one putt on 12 of the greens.
In the other semifinal, Harrington beat Sam Torrance of Scotland four and three.
The Irishman trailed his European Ryder Cup captain by two holes after 15 but clawed back to all-square at the halfway mark and then won the first four holes of the afternoon’s round.
Torrance reduced the deficit to two holes with birdies at the seventh and eighth, but two bogeys at the 13th and 14th left him needing a miracle to recover a second time.
The Irishman put the 48-year-old out of his misery at the next hole after the Scot had duffed his tee shot under a tree and could only take a bogey five.
For Westwood, it was back to the drawing board after playing superbly on Friday to beat Dane Thomas Bjorn.—Reuters
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