Rounds of 75, 74, 78 and 73 left him 20 over par and in a tie for 67th place at the 137th Open at Royal Birkdale.

But the 35-year-old was in jovial form as he presented the prizes at the Lee Westwood/Worksop Guardian Junior Championships, joking that he needed a box to stand on amidst so many tall youngsters.

After giving a short speech, Westwood handed out a host of prizes, posed for pictures and signed dozens of autographs.

Speaking to the Guardian, he said he was already looking ahead.

"I've moved on already," said Westwood.

"You just look to the next tournament and try to get everything back on song for that."

The Worksop golfer can take plenty of positives from his season so far and has high hopes for the remaining tournaments, including the WGC Bridgestone Invitational in Ohio on 31st July and the USPGA Championship in August, on a course Lee is well acquainted with.

He said: "I've played very consistently this year. I've had a lot of top fives and top 10s and I played great at the US Open and nearly won that."

"With one major left I'm quite optimistic and looking forward to getting back to America."

"The PGA is at a course I've played really well on in the Ryder Cup, Oakland Hills in Detroit, so I'm looking forward to the next couple of weeks."

He acknowledged that his putting let him down at Birkdale and outlined his preparations for the coming events in America.

"I played pretty well tee to green all week but I didn't hole enough long putts and missed far too many short ones."

"The conditions obviously made it difficult, even on the greens. People don't seem to realise that, when you're struggling a bit with your putter and it makes it even worse and you have to be far more precise."

"Getting out of playing in the wind is quite difficult because you spend seven days of practise rounds and tournament rounds with the ball back in your stance, trying to drive it in low and then next week there probably won't be that much wind and you're back to hitting it as high as you can again."

"I've got to get my swing back into shape and my short game was pretty good so I just need to make some progress with my putting," Westwood added.