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Westy licking his lips at more McIlroy battles

Lee Westwood is more than happy the media are playing up his rivalry with Rory McIlroy © Getty Images

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Lee Westwood has welcomed the media hyping up his rivalry with Rory McIlroy, the Englishman relishing the chance to pit himself against a player he regards as the "hottest on the planet".

Westwood is currently licking his wounds after losing to McIlroy in the semi-finals of the WGC-Accenture Match Play Championship - a contest he had led before McIlroy fought back from three down to claim a thrilling victory.

While both men chase the world No. 1 ranking the spotlight will be firmly fixed on the battle between the European Ryder Cup stars, and Westwood is happy to have the extra attention. "If I am going to have a rivalry I would like it to be with Rory because he's arguably the hottest player on the planet at the moment," Westwood said.

"I am willing to go along with that if you want to write about it. I've been around a long time now - this is my 19th year out here - and there's been various rivalries thrown at me during my career.

"I really don't pay much attention to them. You learn through playing golf for a long time that the only thing you can control is your own game. That's all I try to do. I figure that if I'm going to keep playing well and getting in contention for tournaments Rory's pretty much going to be in a similar position, so we're going to be playing together a lot.

"It's going to go backwards and forwards. One of us will get the better of the other, as I did in Dubai two weeks ago [Westwood finished second, McIlroy fifth], and then Rory got the better of me last week. That's just the way it is."

Westwood is out of the running to usurp Luke Donald as world No. 1 this week after losing to American Mark Wilson in the third place play-off in Tucson, but McIlroy - a former stablemate of Westwood's - could knock Donald off his perch at the Honda Classic in Palm Beach.

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