Lee Westwood looking for consecutive Malaysian Open wins

Lee Westwood has been atop the leaderboard after each of the last six rounds of the Malaysian Open.

A year ago, Westwood went wire-to-wire in winning the co-sanctioned European Tour and Asian Tour event, taking the trophy by a seven-shot margin. This week, he returned to defend his title and hasn’t relinquished the lead yet.

Westwood shared the lead with Graeme McDowell after Round 1, and after Friday play Westwood shares the lead with Alejandro Canizares on 11 under par.

“I played nicely again,” said Westwood after a second-round, 5-under 67 at Kuala Lumpur G&CC, which is also home to the PGA Tour’s CIMB Classic. “It was pretty solid again and I probably only hit one poor shot all day … I hit a lot of fairways and some good iron shots and made some nice putts. It was great to birdie two of the last three and go from one in front to three in front.”

Going back-to-back would be an achievement, especially considering how the field has improved in recent years. However, pulling off consecutive wire-to-wire wins (without ties) in the same tournament is extremely rare. The last time person to do it on the PGA Tour was Ernie Els, who did it at the Buick Classic in 1996 and ’97.

Ryan Ballengee is a Yahoo Sports contributor. Find him on Facebook and Twitter.

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