Lee Westwood’s decision to hire a former snooker player to improve his putting continued to pay dividends in the early stages of the £5.7million Turkish Airlines Open.

Westwood missed a number of crucial putts as he lost all three of his matches in Europe’s Ryder Cup defeat at Hazeltine, before missing the cut in the following week’s Dunhill Links Championship after a round of 82 at Kingsbarns.

.@WestwoodLee powers up for his first shot at the #TurkishAirlinesOpen pic.twitter.com/yQXScrEBLl

— TurkishAirlinesGolf (@T_A_Golf) November 3, 2016

However, since starting work with sports psychologist and former snooker professional Chris Henry, the 43-year-old finished third in the British Masters and 29th in the WGC-HSBC Champions on Sunday.

Henry has travelled to Antalya for the first of the European Tour’s Final Series events and saw Westwood birdie the first, fifth and sixth to lie just a shot off the early lead shared by George Coetzee, Wang Jeunghun, David Horsey and Thongchai Jaidee.

Masters champion Danny Willett, who needs to finish outright fifth or better to regain top spot in the Race to Dubai, was one under par after a birdie on the fourth, with defending champion Victor Dubuisson one over.

Willett had led the money list since claiming his first major title at Augusta in April, but was overtaken by Open champion Henrik Stenson on Sunday.

Stenson was joint-second in the WGC-HSBC Champions in Shanghai as Willett finished 14 over par and 75th in the 78-man field, turning the Swede’s deficit of more than 400,000 points into a lead of 261,387.