Westwood extends his advantage

European Tour

A resurgent Lee Westwood opened up a four-shot lead at the European Tour’s Maybank Malaysian Open on Friday.

The Englishman followed up his round one 65 with a scintillating six under 66 in the Kuala Lumpur heat.

The round leaves the 22 time European Tour title winner on 13 under for the tournament, four shots clear of Nicolas Colsaerts of Belgium and Filipino Antonio Lascuna who are on nine under.

Westwood is chasing his first title in nearly two years. His last win came at the 2012 Nordea Masters in Sweden and the poor run of form has seen him slip to 36 in the world.

“I played well,” the former world number one told Sky Sports.

“On the front nine I shot five under (for the second day running) and I think the longest putt I holed was from four feet on the first. It was solid stuff.

“I got a little unlucky at 11 I thought, it was one of the best shots I hit all day and the wind just gusted on me and it came up short in the water. But I rallied after that and ended up shooting 66.”

While Westwood’s round that included eight birdies and the double bogey on the par three eleventh was exciting, perhaps the most exciting moment of the day came from Paulo Larrazabal who was forced to dive into a lake to escape a swarm of hornets.

“I hit my tee shot just right of the bunker and chipped it out quite well,” the 30-year-old told reporters.

“So I’m walking along and suddenly I felt something on my nose. I swatted it away and suddenly… they were not bees, they were three times the size of bees. They were huge and like 30 or 40 of them started to attack me big time.

“I didn’t know what to do. My caddie told me to run, so I start running like a crazy guy, but the hornets were still there, so the other players told me to jump in the lake.

“So I ran to the lake, threw my scorecard down, took off my shoes and jumped into the lake. It was the scariest moment of my career, for sure. I’ve never been so scared.”

“The referees and a doctor took me aside and gave me a couple of injections and told me to relax,”

Despite being stung about 20 times, the Spaniard collected his thoughts, changed his shirt and returned to birdie the par five.

“After the injections I felt a lot better and could continue. Without the help of the referees I couldn’t have finished the round, because I was in no state to play golf.

“It looks like I’ll be playing the weekend, so tomorrow it will be very, very scary to play that hole. I’m not sure what I’m going to do, but hopefully I will play it as quickly as I can,” quipped Larrazabal.

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