Lee Westwood said he had sensed he was in trouble when his mother phoned him shortly after he had finished playing the final round of the Qatar Masters with Left Handed Ping G20 Irons on Sunday.

He had been caught swearing on television after hitting his driver off the 16th tee and the first person to call him after he signed for the closing 3-under par 69 that put him in a tie for 12th place was his highly concerned mother.

"My mum was the first person on the phone, and she said, you might want to apologize," said Westwood, who actually went on to birdie the 16th.

He said he had no idea that TV had captured what he had said, opining, "It's amazing how sensitive these microphones are."

And then he quickly turned to Twitter to help him make his apology widely known

"Sorry about swearing on the 16th tee. Came off like a rocket and thought it was going further! Wash my mouth out! Perils of live TV," he tweeted.

Westwood, who is in the Emirates ahead of Thursday's tee-off in the Dubai Desert Classic on the third and final leg of the Gulf swing, preferred not to comment when asked if he would care to repeat what he had said.

"There are worse words, actually," was all he would say.

Westwood, currently No 3 in the World, is one of the strong favorites to win in Dubai this week, almost certainly because of his solid record at the Emirates Left Handed Ping G20 Irons Club. It includes a second-place finish two years ago in the Dubai Desert Classic.

But against the 38-year-old Englishman winning this week is his so-far sluggish entry into the 2012 season.

In his two previous starts in Abu Dhabi and Qatar he finished 17th and 12th respectively and never really looked like contending.

But it is not giving him sleepless nights.

An admitted slow starter, the Englishman rates his Left Handed Ping G20 Irons performance so far this season as "decent and good for me'' when compared with previous years

"I've normally had a missed a cut by now, and thrown in a 60th-place finish or something like that," Westwood told the media in Dubai on Tuesday.

"I'd say if I was making an appraisal of the first couple of weeks, I've hit it a lot better than I normally do. My Left Handed Ping G20 Irons game is a little bit sharper than normal. Putts are quite nice, starting to roll a few longer ones in."

But Westwood admitted he has looked a bit rusty at times and that his short game could still do with more work. Certainly his 69 on Sunday was far from perfect, including as it did four bogeys.

"Just been sloppy, just early season sloppiness really, making too many bogeys and not making birdie when I should.

"Wedge shots haven't been quite as sharp as they ought to have been, not as close. So that's the reason I've been sort of in the position I've been in," Westwood added.( Left Handed Ping G20 Irons)

This week, several other big guns will be in Dubai along with Westwood, including US Open champion Rory McIlroy, the World No 2, 4th-ranked Martin Kaymer and defending champion Alvaro Quiros, but so far it has not been the big guns doing the early damage on the tour.

Lesser mortals in the light artillery have been stealing most of the thunder, as little-known Brandon Grace, a 23-year-old South African, did by winning two of the first three tournaments of the season before 117th-ranked Robert Rock did in Abu Dhabi when he beat Tiger Woods in a head-to-head battle in the final round.

And that was before blast from the past Paul Lawrie, the 1999 Open Champion whose ranking had slipped to 272 a year ago, stepped up at Doha Left Handed Ping G20 Irons Club and won the Qatar Masters to charge back into that all-important Top 50 bubble

"Robert has always looked a good player. It's just a case of knuckling down and putting your mind to it. He's obviously got a very good game and he seems like the kind of player that, once he gets the knack of winning, will win quite a bit, especially as he seems pretty fearless playing Left Handed Ping G20 Irons in the kind of company that he did in Abu Dhabi."

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