Lee Westwood will be without the services of Billy Foster at the Wells Fargo Championship after the caddie injured a leg playing football.
Westwood's bagman on crutches after football mishap
Lee Westwood will be without the services of Billy Foster at this week's Wells Fargo Championship after the caddie injured a leg in a charity football match.
Foster faces up to six weeks out of action having sustained an injury that has seen him forced on to crutches.
As a result, Westwood has borrowed Fred Couples' regular caddie, Cayce Kerr, to carry his bag at this week's PGA Tour event at the Quail Hollow Club in North Carolina.
"It could have happened at a better time, but you can't control these things," Westwood told
Sky Sports News.
"You've got to move on and I've got a good caddie this week, Cayce, who normally works for Fred Couples. We know Fred was there or thereabouts at The Masters a couple of weeks back so he's good at caddying under pressure.
"He's worked for Fuzzy (Zoeller) in the past and Darren (Clarke) as well and they're pretty hard taskmasters so I think we'll get on well and hopefully it won't affect me too much."
Foster's injury means he is highly unlikely to partner Westwood at the Players Championship which takes place at TPC Sawgrass next week.
However, Westwood will be hopeful his bagman is fully recovered in time for the season's second major - the US Open - which takes place in San Francisco on June 14-17.
"Billy's an integral part of the team and very important to me and knows my game really well and there's some big tournaments coming up," Westwood added.
World number one
Westwood made a successful defence of the Indonesian Masters a fortnight ago and before that came joint third at Augusta so is hopeful he can get back to world number one.
The 39-year-old will be back at the top of the rankings for the first time in almost a year if he wins on Sunday and Rory McIlroy is outside the first six.
But if Westwood does not lift the title the Northern Irishman - 23 this Friday - needs a top-seven finish to go to number one for the third time in just over two months.
Westwood partners Kyle Stanley and defending champion Lucas Glover while McIlroy plays the opening two rounds with two other former winners at Quail Hollow, Jim Furyk and David Toms
Graeme McDowell was in the original field, but withdrew in order to rest and recharge his batteries before next week's Players Championship - the event he led by three at one point last year, but then fell away to a closing 79.
