Lee Westwood and Ian Poulter explain the decision to skip Open qualifying

Ian Poulter at The Open a few years ago at Royal Birkdale.

Ahead of LIV London at Centurion Club, Today’s Golfer got the chance to talk to Lee Westwood and Ian Poulter about their decision not to pursue Open Qualifying to gain entry into the final major of the year at Royal Liverpool.

The familiar figures of Lee Westwood and Ian Poulter will not be in the field at The 151^st Open later this month, but both stood by their decisions to miss Final Qualifying during a busy couple of weeks for the LIV Golf Series.

The veteran Englishmen are, understandably, disappointed to miss out on the final Major of the year at Royal Liverpool, and that disappointment is amplified for Westwood after he was barred from entering the Senior Open the following week due to his resignation from the DP World Tour.

Having tumbled down the world rankings as a consequence of their involvement with LIV Golf over the last year, Westwood and Poulter were not exempt from The Open and both were unwilling to push their bodies to the limit by traveling back from Valderrama to compete in Final Qualifying over 36 holes on Tuesday.

They insisted their priority was staying fit and fresh for this week’s LIV Golf London event at Centurion Golf Club, the venue for the inaugural event in the series 12 months ago, meaning Westwood will miss The Open for the first time in 28 years, while Poulter is not in the field for only the third time since his Open debut in 2000.

“It’s not easy to play 36 holes after traveling back from Europe,” said Poulter at Tuesday’s press conference with his Majesticks team-mates – Westwood, 2016 Open champion Henrik Stenson and Laurie Canter, who will replace the injured Sam Horsfield for Team Majesticks at Centurion having won the Open Final Qualifying event at Royal Porthcawl the previous day.

“Obviously I’d like to have made the Open Championship, but I’d like to have made it through the World Ranking points system, which we know is not there. For me, it’s about having the right amount of time off to be fresh and ready to play golf. I’ve got a big tournament this week to play, and Team Majesticks need me as fit as possible. Being 47, I’m not a spring chicken anymore, I’ve played quite a lot of Opens, and it’s one of those decisions that I had to make, and I made the right decision golf for my golf.”

“I’ve got 14 events on my calendar season. There will be a couple of additions to that, but it’s a shorter season than what I have played in the past. So I feel better, fresher, and stronger when I’m competing here on LIV, and if the qualifying date wasn’t the date it was, maybe I’d have qualified or attempted to try and qualify. But to sandwich 36 holes right in the middle of two tournaments that I’m working hard to play well on didn’t make sense for me at the time.”

Westwood, who turned 50 in April, was looking forward to making his 29^th appearance in The Open followed by his debut among the Senior ranks at Royal Porthcawl a week later, but he will now have a couple of weeks off before heading to The Greenbrier in West Virginia for the 10^th event in this year’s LIV Golf schedule in early August.

“I sit down at the start of the year, do a schedule, and see when the qualifying was for the Open Championship,” he explained. “I knew this was going to be a busy week, knew that I was playing at Valderrama, and I thought it was a good opportunity to play my first ever seniors event at the Senior Open Championship, which is the week after the Open.

“So I’d entered and committed to that, but unfortunately, the Senior Open doesn’t look to be as open as the Open Championship, so was barred from playing in that. So I’ve now got three weeks off, and then I’ll go into more LIV events. My idea and goal was to go and play in the Seniors Open. I thought that was going to give me the best opportunity to perform well and have a chance at winning that.

“I knew that I was in this event (at Centurion) and not for sure in the Open Championship, so you’ve got to plan for what you know or tournaments that you think you’re going to be in without other things kind of transpiring. You can’t always be right, there’s always ‘ifs and buts’ in there. But yeah, I’d planned a schedule.

“The Open is the greatest championship in the world as far as I’m concerned. I’ve played 28 in a row and I’ve had a lot of fun playing in them. But as you get older, things come to an end, and you can’t just keep playing.

“Maybe I’ll try and qualify next year, we’ll just have to see when it is.”

Poulter, meanwhile, remains hopeful that LIV Golf events will be granted status on the Official World Golf Rankings to enhance his chances of playing in future Opens without having to go through the qualifying process.

“Look, I’ve missed lots of majors through the years,” he added. “When you’re not top 60, you’re not in the US Open. If you’re not top 50, you’re not in the Masters. And if you’re not top 50 or earn it through an Order of Merit position to get in the Open Championship? It’s not the first time.

“And it won’t be the last time unless we can get some World Ranking points and move back up into a position where I can automatically qualify.”

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