Westwood will soon be sitting pretty on top of the world;Lee Westwood has decided not to play again
Westwood had a chance to end Woods' five-year reign yesterday with a top-two finish in the Dunhill Links Championship at St Andrews, but managed only 11th place.
If he had gone to Vilamoura to defend his Portugal Masters title this week he would have had to finish third to take the No.1 spot.
But the fact he has pulled out of the event and Woods is not back in action until the WGC-HSBC Champions in Shanghai on November 4-7 means they will swap places before then.
Although he had wanted to achieve the top spot on the course Westwood, who helped Europe win back the Ryder Cup straight after a six-week lay-off, said: "I'll take it any way. I've had a great year until getting injured.
"Look at all the world ranking points I've won - I was leading that by a mile before my injury.
"But I'm not allowing myself to think about it until it happens. It's something I've always dreamed of and it would be great if it happened."
Westwood, who almost pulled out in Scotland on Thursday after aggravating his problem walking down a steep slope, was suffering again from the moment he got out of bed.
He resumed the Dunhill event in joint fifth spot yesterday.
"I woke up and it was hurting more than the other days, so all in all I don't suppose seven under is too bad," he said.
"I haven't had a chance to get it healed. I tried my hardest to get back to the Ryder Cup fully fit and got to 80%, which I thought was good enough with the adrenalin, but that was a tough week.
"And this is not an easy one - six-hour rounds and only two days off between finishing the Ryder Cup and starting here.
"It's just got progressively more agitated and achy.
"You won't see me coming back until I can practice fully and do myself justice out here."
He hopes that will be alongside Woods in China, but he might delay it for another three weeks and his defence of the Dubai World Championship.
The only way Woods can hang on to his position would be to enter another tournament, but since he has already regained the No.1 spot from Ernie Els, Greg Norman, David Duval and Vijay Singh during his career, trying to grab it back off Westwood might prove an added spur for him.
Meanwhile, golf's newest Major champion Martin Kaymer became the first player to win three times in a row on the European Tour since Tiger Woods four years ago.
In bitterly cold and windy conditions at St Andrews the 25-year-old German added the Dunhill Links title to the US PGA Championship he took in a play-off in August and the KLM Open in Holland last month.
Kaymer took the £502,512 first prize with a 17 under-par aggregate of 271. It was his fourth win of the season - and the last person to do that in Europe was also Woods in 2006.
Kaymer is now up to world No.4 and more than £860,000 clear of Graeme McDowell at the top of the European money list.
He produced a superb six under par 66 to beat English pair Danny Willett and John Parry - Walker Cup team-mates three years ago - by three and four shots respectively.
