Westwood gives some advice to Flintoff

Andrew Flintoff turned from crashing a cricket ball to all parts of Essex into a crash course in how to handle the headlines and fame his heroics are attracting. Flintoff celebrated his latest case of assault and battery of a cricket ball by asking another young superstar for the kind of advice he hopes will help his career, England's World Cup prospects and life in the glare of the cameras.

Lee Westwood, at just turned 26 already a 14-time champion and heading for world number one status, was only too willing to pass on the knowledge gained from his own turbo-charged acceleration to the forefront of sporting attention.

Westwood's advice when the pair of lionhearts met for the first time among the leafy acres of Cheshire came from his own, often glittering and sometimes bitter experiences, since he first attracted the golfing world to his amazing talents by winning his first professional title, the Scandinavian Masters, less than three    years ago.

"Trust as few people as possible, value your private life and only attract attention to yourself by your deeds in the sporting arena," was Westwood's message to the Lancashire all-rounder, who less than 24 hours earlier had clubbed an amazing 143 including nine sixes and 15 fours from just 66 deliveries.

The meeting between two of England's greatest ever prospects from separate fields came in the presence of the pair's business manager Andrew 'Chubby' Chandler. They took to the fairways at Carden Park, the Jack Nicklaus creation just outside Chester for a get-to-know-you and brain-picking exercise.

"Everything's been happening very quickly for me when you think that 15 months ago I was playing for Lancashire seconds and now I've played two Tests and am involved with the World Cup squad," said Flintoff, the blond ball batterer, who also included three wickets and two catches in his glorious day against Essex.

"It's been good to talk to somebody of a similar age who's been there and done it," said Flintoff. "I can learn from Lee's experiences because everything happened quickly for him and he seems to have coped very well".

The pair were scheduled to chat yesterday long before Sunday's runfest, but it proved an even more timely meeting considering Westwood's last two outings had been a top 10 finish at The Masters and his 14th win in just 33 months in Macau.

"I thought it would be good for Andrew to hear about life at the sharp end from somebody from a similar background who knows what it's all about," said Chandler. "Lee has always set a very good example of how a normal lad can handle success.

"The main thing for Andrew to learn now that he is right at the beginning of what promises to be a huge career is just what he is going to have to cope with and how he can still mix business and other interests in the right measures and at the right time". Westwood may be one of the hardest workers in golf, but he has never been totally absorbed so that it has affected his ability to have a life away from the golf course.

One of Westwood's main points to Flintoff was to be careful in who he confides. "You can get too trusting and then people carve you up," he said. "It's also very important to value your private life because the more famous you get the smaller your world becomes. To be honest, I didn't find it too difficult striking a balance, but it can be if you attract attention to yourself by other things than what you do in the sporting field."

Westwood, who himself learned a huge career lesson when he discovered the feelings of leading a major tournament for the first time at The Masters, also advised Flintoff in the huge importance of one of the smallest words in the dictionary. "You do have to learn to say 'No'," said Westwood. "If you say yes to everybody you can end up running yourself into the ground".

TRW