Resurgent Willett believes a return to his best golf is ‘close’

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Willett tees off on the 2nd during the opening round of the 10th DP World Tour Championship at Jumeirah Golf Estates.

By Kent Gray
For most of the field at the 10th Race to Dubai decider, golf’s off-season, however short, can’t come soon enough. Danny Willett wishes the complete opposite.

The 31-year-old Englishman continued his welcome resurgence with a five-under 67 on the opening day of the $8 million DP World Tour Championship to sit a shot back of leaders Jordan Smith and Adrian Otaegui.

Willett’s fall from ninth in the official world rankings after winning the Masters to a low of 332nd is well documented. It all started to go wrong after a disastrous Ryder Cup debut later in 2016 and much of the following year was a write-off given the crippling pain of a back complaint.

This season didn’t start any better with just one cut made in his first nine starts but a return to something approaching normal health has golf’s version of Humpty Dumpty, as one British newspaper journalist coined Willett, slowly putting it all back together again.

There have been three top 10s on the European Tour this season, the most recent a T-7 in Turkey as the switch from Pete Cowan to Sean Foley, Tiger Woods’ former swing coach, has started to take hold.

“Yeah, it is close,” Willett, now ranked 276, said when asked how his game was trending after joining defending champion Jon Rahm on -5.

“It’s a shame it’s the last event of the season. It is. From kind of June, July onwards, we were making better strides, and we could work harder and work longer and that’s had a big impact.

“Since Ireland [where he finished T-6], we’ve had another 10 or 12 events under our belt and hitting more shots, more good shots under a bit of pressure obviously in tournament mode, and yeah, we’re still working really hard trying to get every piece of the puzzle to kind of come together.

The arrival of his son, Zachariah, days before the 2016 Masters made preparation tough but not so difficult as Willett proved by winning the 2016 title. Photo: Oli Scarff

“It always seems on one day when you get something good, something else kind of goes, and you are just kind of waiting for them weeks like Westy had last week where the things come together. You work on the right things, and it’s nice to have them weeks where things kind of fit in.”

Willett missed a couple of five-footers for par but was otherwise happy with his opening circumnavigation of Earth.

“Obviously I missed this last year. I was injured. It’s nice to be back,” he said.

“You often see low scores around here, but they really tried to tuck a few of them flags today. 5-under is a really good knock.”

Willett missing the cut in all the majors barring a T-24 placing at Carnoustie. He played just two PGA Tour events last season, missing the cut in The Players after withdrawing from the Arnold Palmer Invitational. But like more and more of the European Tour’s marquee players, his focus will be predominantly in the U.S. next season, at least early on.

He’s already started his 2018-19 PGA Tour campaign with a missed cut at the Safeway Open in Napa before finishing T-23 at the CJ Cup @ Nine Bridges in South Korea last month.

“It’s going to be a busy old year I think. We’re going to play predominately out there for the first half of the season, and then hopefully predominantly in Europe the second half of the season. Hopefully you play well and you get in the World Golf Championships, [because] it does make your life a hell of a lot easier.

For now though, Willett is content to continue his comeback on Earth.

“We got here and have the ball under nice control and movement is pretty good. Again, we’re going to play [the last} 54 holes of the year and just play till the bell goes and see where we finish.”