Westwood putts into contention

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Westwood carded a course-record 64, eight under par, in the second round of the Valle Romano Open de Andalucia to lie just two shots off the lead held by stablemate Louis Oosthuizen.

The world number 63 was furious with his putting in an opening 72 and discarded the offending "belly" putter in favour of a standard length club on Friday, and was rewarded with eight birdies in a flawless display at Aloha Golf Club.

Speaking about his new putter, Westwood said: "It's one I had with me, I brought five out in anticipation of the way things have been going this year.

"I used it in the first round of the US Masters and swore I'd never use it again, but it seems to roll the ball well on these greens and anything would have been better than Thursday. I don't think Thursday's putter is going to be seen for a while!

"My long game has been pretty good all year and I just haven't been able to match it up with a decent putting round so it was nice to get it right today. I went cross-handed, which is something I've not done for years, and felt a lot more comfortable on the greens."

"I couldn't tell you the last time I used the same putter for an extended period of time. I'd say there's about 200 in the garage. PING will be ringing me up to get some of them back now! I've even got about six belly putters of varying length, depending on my 'size' shall we say!"

Westwood's approach play still deserved much of the credit for his lowest score of the season, a hat-trick of birdies from the fifth coming from a combined distance of just 10ft.

Playing partner Gonzalo Fernandez-Castano added a 68 to his opening 67 to finish one ahead of Westwood on nine under, remaining on course for back-to-back victories following his Italian Open victory on Sunday.