LONDON: World No. 3 Lee Westwood has recovered from the shoulder problem that troubled him at the Abu Dhabi Championship and is ready to challenge for the first prize of 316,020 euros ($413,700) at the Qatar Masters.

“I had a few issues to negotiate last week,” said the 38-year-old Briton on the eve of his second tournament appearance of the season.

“We’ve been working a lot on my fitness recently and I hadn’t played a lot going into Abu Dhabi,” Westwood told the European Tour’s website. “I had a bit of a shoulder injury the first couple of days there which is now gone. It just needed to loosen up a little bit.”

The Qatar Masters is the second event on the tour’s so-called Desert Swing, sandwiched between Abu Dhabi and next week’s Dubai Desert Classic.

Westwood, who finished tied 17th last Sunday, said the Doha Golf Club was the most difficult of the three courses being used in the Middle East.

“Apparently the rough is not as long as it was last year but the weather man says it’s going to be fairly windy,” the Englishman added.

“When it’s like that around here it is a really tough test. If the wind really pumps this week it could quite easily be an eight or nine-under-par winning score.”

Westwood partners defending champion Thomas Bjorn and world No. 10 Jason Day of Australia in the first two rounds.

“I was asked at the end of last week who will have a big year and the only one I picked out was Jason Day,” said the world No. 3.

“I think he’s a talented player. He gets overlooked quite a bit and obviously by saying that I put the curse on him and he missed the cut in Abu Dhabi,” joked Westwood.

Bjorn’s victory in Qatar last year spurred him on to achieve two more wins at the Johnnie Walker Championship in Scotland and the European Masters in Switzerland.

“I made a decision two years ago,” said the 40-year-old Dane. “I went through a spell of not finding golf all that much fun and I maybe fell out of love with the game and the traveling.

“I made a decision that if I was going to play this game I wanted to be able to be competitive and play with the best players in the world and to do that I had to totally refocus on golf.

“Where a lot of people see the results last year as a return to form, it was probably something that started quite a bit sooner than that for me, total recommitment to the game,” added Bjorn.

“I am now comfortable on the golf course, I enjoy my travels, I enjoy being out there and I have promised myself I am going to have a good finish to my career.”