Ssssh, close the curtains, gather round, listen up. Jack Nicklaus has recently revealed his secret to playing better golf. Here goes. You’d better sit down: “Hole more putts.” Thanks Mr Nicklaus. Blinding.

But four years ago, that seemingly simple, yet often perplexing, secret deserted Lee Westwood.  He lost his confidence and his game crumbled. It didn’t help, of course, that Westwood also lost the magic stardust-sprinkled putter with which he won six tournaments when he was riding high in the world rankings around the turn of the century. “I’ve used a lot of putters over the years,” he said. “They are all in my garage. I counted them recently. There were 169,” he grinned.

“I’ve probably won with only seven or eight of them. Maybe 10. There was one I won six times with but I just couldn’t find it anywhere. And then I went to play at Wentworth in 2006 and there it was hanging on the wall,” he laughed.  “But it’s okay. I don’t think I will ever use it again now; it’s worn out anyway. I changed the grip and it never felt the same again. So I don’t think I’ll be going back to wrench it down.” It’s nice that Westwood can now laugh about his putting because for years, he says, it had been abysmal and at times the pressure got to him.

“First it was a technical problem then it became a mental one,” he admitted. While Westwood has been revelling in a starring matchplay role in the now traditional biennial European roasting of the Americans in the Ryder Cup, he had lost his golfing mojo in his stroke-play day job. For four years he failed to add to his 27 worldwide victories, and plummeted from world number four to outside the top 250.  And then, wham, he won twice last year at the Andalucian Open and the British Masters. Westwood, now 34-years-old, has toned up in the gym (his waist has shrunk in one year from 42 inches to 34 inches), changed his diet (“I’ve been spitting out all the things that taste nice, like crisps, biscuits, chocolate and booze!”), rediscovered his putting stroke, and fought his way back into the world’s top 20. He can now afford to smile when he sees that old lucky putter nailed to the wall at Wentworth when he returns to the West Course for the BMW PGA Championship in May.

And, for the globetrotting Westwood, salvation lay in deepest, darkest, ahem, Birmingham. He has been frequenting a mysterious establishment run by putting guru Paul Hurrion that Westwood says feels like a laboratory.  “It’s full of rabbits,” he laughed. “No, it’s just a hard floor, like a putting green on a carpet, cameras all over the room, and mirrors. A bit kinky, really, when you say it like that. I didn’t get a very good roll on the silk sheets,” he grinned.

“Paul has got me to return to the way I putted between 1998 and 2000 – hands high, ball in front on my left side, working on pace. “I have gone back to moving the putter in front of the ball and then back behind to stop me getting too stationary. “That has given my stroke more feeling. And I have gone left below right with my grip and I’m sticking with it. It feels comfortable. I am now looking at 25-footers and expecting to hole them.”

And therein lies the secret of putt for dough. “When you are not confident, you start dribbling putts to the hole because you are afraid of the two-and-a-half footer coming back. “And, in the back of your head, you are not expecting to hole putts. Putting is confidence driven and when you lose that confidence, you stand over the ball and your grip doesn’t feel quite right and you can’t get comfortable  over the ball.

“It’s no different to how amateurs feel. But I now have a new lease of life. It’s like a second career is about to start.” Westwood’s ambition is to get back into the world’s top five but he is honest enough to admit that number one is not attainable. “We are up against the best player who ever lived,” he said. “We all know that if Tiger has his best day and I have mine, he’s probably going to beat me. You have to have amazing faith in your own ability to get to his level. And I think everybody struggles with that. You can’t be confident all the time. Confidence takes years to build up and can disappear in one shot if it comes at the wrong moment.”

Spoken like a man who has served his time searching for answers lost in the wilderness of golf’s dark side. But this son of Worksop has finally stepped out into the sunlight again holding the truth that, deep down inside, he already knew. It’s all about holing more putts. That Mr Nicklaus chap really does know what he’s talking about.