BBC SPORT | SOL AT THE OPEN | Brit pack hits back

By BBC Sport Online's Stuart Roach at Lytham

The leading players in golf's Brit pack are all clamouring to win one title this week - and battling to lose another.

Colin Montgomerie, Darren Clarke and Lee Westwood are all among a clutch of players often described as "greatest player never to win a Major" and they are all trying to shrug the millstone from around their necks.

Americans Phil Mickelson and David Duval are in a similar position, but it is the Brits who have come under fire this week.

Former Ryder Cup captain Tony Jacklin has questioned their desire to land one of the great prizes in golf.

You don't win 24 times in four-and-a-half years without wanting to win bad enough

Lee Westwood

All of them, he claims, have the ability to win, but he claims they lack the desire to go all the way.

"Do they want it bad enough? Is it really necessary to their lives?" Jacklin asked, adding: "No, I don't think so.

"My desire was such that I had to have it. Winning comes from the inside."

But Westwood was quick to hit back at the questions, saying: "From a personal point of view you don't win 24 times in four-and-a-half years without wanting to win bad enough.

"Open championships are no different, Major championships are no different.

"It is easy to say these things when you have won two Majors, he said of Jacklin, adding: "It's unfortunate that people believe what they read in the papers and they believe one person's opinion.

"Often one person's opinion is the complete opposite to another 55 million.

"I would dearly love to win a Major championship, especially an Open.

Last season, Westwood won seven times as he deposed Montgomerie as European number one, but this term has proved more of a struggle.

He has missed the cut in three of his last four tournaments, carding an 81 at the Great North Open last month.

'Not agree'

But he still believes a Major is within his grasp - and sees no reason why it should not be this one.

"I think we have proved over the last few years that we want to win badly enough," Westwood said in defence of himself and his Brit Pack .

"I think I have the game for it.

"I would agree it takes more than just having a game but I would not agree with Tony that it has to be your whole life. I think winning a major is more in your mind."

Darren Clarke
Clarke: "I'm not out here to have a nice time. I want to win Majors"

Clarke was also quick to answer Jacklin's questions. He said: "I am not one to argue with somebody who has won two Majors when I haven't won any, but on a scale of one to 10 my desire to win is 15 or 20.

"I'm not out here to have a nice time. I want to win Majors."

"I have never gone into an Open feeling better about my game."

So Clarke also has the ability. What about the passion?

"This is the oldest tournament in the world, where the game began," he said.

"I had just taken up golf and was 11 when I saw Seve Ballesteros on television playing out of a car park here (at Lytham in 1979).

"I fell in love with links golf after that."

Positive thinking

Questioning Montgomerie's desire to win also seems churlish, given the Scotsman's agony at two US Open play-off defeats.

He wants a Major, for sure, but he wants this one most of all.

"I am a British golfer and this is the Open. If I had a choice of winning a Major this would be the number one," he insisted.

"I would not come here if I did not think I could win. That will be the time that I stop.

'More experienced'

"I have got quite close. On a couple of occasions I don't feel it was my fault - you can get fortunate or you can't get fortunate," he said.

"It is just one of those things. There is plenty of time left and I don't feel I'm running out of time.

"I am a better golfer now than I was and hopefully much more experienced."

Jacklin possibly did not expect to be answered quite so quickly - or quite so forcefully.

In four days' time, one of the Brit Pack will endeavour to have the final word.


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