Lee Westwood Ready for Return to Torrey Pines With New Bride as Caddie
LA JOLLA, Calif. – Caddie, psychologist and now wife.
After a three-year engagement, Lee Westwood and Helen Storey tied the knot in Las Vegas on Friday, so this week’s U.S. Open will mark the first time Storey has carried the bag as Mrs. Westwood.
“It’s great fun,” Lee Westwood said after his practice round on Monday afternoon at Torrey Pines. “It’s not changed anything really, except it’s easier to introduce her as wife instead of fiancé.”
The pair previously tried to have a wedding in Newcastle, England, where they currently live, but it just wasn’t possible due to the draconic COVID rules in the U.K.
It started with plans to have 120 guests, then it was cut to 60, 15 and, lastly, six. And then? Lee, 48, and Helen, 44, decided about weeks ago that they would fly to Las Vegas and exchange vows at the Bellagio Hotel.
At Torrey Pines, Westwood is returning to a place where in 2008 he finished one shot out of a playoff with Tiger Woods and Rocco Mediate. That third-place finish was his best at a U.S. Open.
“Very similar, I think they added a couple of tees,” Westwood said of this year's Torrey Pines setup. “Very thick (rough) around the green.” The rough off the fairways is not as penal as 2008, and Westwood said that in certain areas you can get away with wayward drives.
The new Mrs. Westwood’s career as caddie started in 2017 at the Abu Dhabi HSBC Championship in January 2017. Lee Westwood was in the gym and got a call from long-time looper Billy Foster that his father had passed away and he would not be able to work in Abu Dhabi. Storey raised her hand immediately, and from then on she has more or less been Westwood’s full-time caddie.
She also prefers carrying her husband’s full-sized staff bag. “I won’t have it,” she said of carrying a smaller bag. “It’s not me. It’s my workout routine. (With a smaller bag) I’d have to do the gym on top of it.”
Westwood is looking forward to the week at the U.S. Open, but he doesn’t know what to expect – these days, some weeks he plays great and some weeks it’s not there. He’s currently 27th in the World Ranking. Westwood believes his new bride is a big part of his recent success, injecting an attitude that he never had at a younger age.
“I’m much more relaxed. Helen has taught me it’s basically just a seven-mile walk around a big green field at the end of the day,” he said. “Not to worry about outcomes and stuff like that.
“She doesn’t know a lot about golf. She can’t help with yardages and things like that, but she can help me with my brain,” Westwood said. “She knows what my brain is doing at certain times and how I’m thinking.”
When Westwood has visited a sports psychologist, his wife has been right there, listening and learning about her player, who also happens to be her husband. That’s helped them be the best team they can be.
But there is one thing his wife can’t do: call her husband off a shot.
“No, I’d get a lot of earache,” Mrs. Westwood said. “I’d never hear the end of it.”