WGC-HSBC promises plenty
BY Bruce Young | Asian Tour | 2010 HSBC Champions Tournament | Preview | 03 Nov 2010
The World Golf Championship HSBC Champions event takes pride of place in world golf this week when the event is staged at the Nelson Harworth designed Sheshan International Golf Club in Shanghai.
The tournament became a WGC event for the first occasion in 2009 and as a consequence has taken on a whole new dimension in terms of its place in the pecking order of golf.
This week’s field bears testament to that very statement with seven of the world’s top ten in the field including the leading four, Lee Westwood, Tiger Woods, Martin Kaymer and Phil Mickelson.
The newly crowned world number one, Westwood has played very little tournament golf in recent months, in fact in only two stroke-play tournaments since finishing runner-up to Louis Oosthuisen at the Open Championship but he played the Ryder Cup in early October and then the following week he finished 11th at the Dunhill Links.
Despite being the world number one, Westwood is an unknown quantity to some extent having given his ankle time to rest over the past month. He finished 8th in this event twelve months ago.
Woods is in a similar category having not played since the Ryder Cup and in no stroke-play event in nearly two months. He has shown a great capacity to play well fresh however and although he has yet to win the event previously, he has played this venue well in the past.
Mickelson is a two time winner of the tournament and the defending champion after defeating Ernie Els last year. Mickelson has been only average by his standards in recent tournaments and will need to have made improvement in his break since the Ryder Cup.
Martin Kaymer on the other hand has played twice since the Ryder Cup, winning the Alfred Dunhill the week after and then finishing 21st last week in Spain. His greater tournament sharpness might be a factor this week. A win or runner-up last week in Spain might well have given him the world number one mantle but it might just be that the title will fall to him this week. Kaymer finished 6th in this event last year.
Paul Casey has played well previously in China and was playing well prior to the Ryder Cup where of course he was an omission from the European team. He finished 4th at the Tour Championship in Atlanta and runner-up at the BMW in Chicago so brings some good recent form to the event. He has taken a break away from the game since but he stands a chance.
Luke Donald was part of the winning Ryder Cup team and has played nicely in recent weeks including when third last week in Malaysia and runner up in the Tour Championship. With last week’s run under his belt he is better placed than many to do well.
The Australasians in the field are headed by their leading world ranked player Robert Allenby who stormed home last week in Malaysia with a final round of 64 to finish in a share of 5th. Allenby could only manage 23rd here last year but he is in good form right now and is likely to do a lot better in 2010.
Adam Scott is on the fringe of putting it all together and has a 6th place finish in this event two years ago. He finished 11th last week in Malaysia but appears on the verge of a big tournament.
Richard Green, Michael Sim, Stuart Appleby, Marcus Fraser, Brendan Jones, Andrew Dodt and Alistair Presnell all, for various reasons, get their chance in this US$7 million event.
