HSBC Champions offers hope for many

BY Bruce Young | Asian Tour | 2011 HSBC Champions Tournament | Preview | 02 Nov 2011

The World Golf Championship HSBC Champions event is played this week at the Sheshan International Golf Club in Shanghai where a field of 78 players tee it up chasing their share of the US$7 million purse.

The event was first played as the HSBC Champions tournament in 2005 but for the last two years it has taken on the additional role as a World Golf Championship event.

With the withdrawal of the world number one, Luke Donald, to attend to pending fatherhood duties, the event has been robbed of one of its stars but his absence puts yet another twist on the outcome.

Rory McIlory is currently €1.3 million behind Luke Donald on the race to Dubai money list. A win for him in this event and the accompanying €842,000 would close that gap considerably and although neither is entered for next week’s Singapore Open events such as the Hong Kong Open and the Race to Dubai Final could still determine the outcome of Donald’s quest for money list supremacy on either side of the Atlantic.

Lee Westwood heads the field in terms of world ranking but it is likely to be the in-form McIlory who will start as favourite following his narrow but impressive victory at the Shanghai Masters last week. McIlory finished 5th last year in this event and 4th the previous year.

Westwood finished runner-up in the event last year behind Francesco Molinari, that pair putting a gap between themselves and the rest of the field. Westwood has played well in recent starts, his last round 67 at the Shanghai Masters, the equal best of the day. He finished 5th there and given his good record over this Nelson Harworth designed layout is likley to be a factor again.

“I became the world number one at this time last year and I played like the world number one in the tournament," said Westwood. "Unfortunately Francesco played a little bit better.

“I was a bit unlucky on the last hole last year. My five-iron, just crawled to the top of that slope. If it had not and stopped a foot short, the ball probably would have rolled back four or five feet and I would have had a realistic chance to tie,” added the Englishman.

Nick Watney and Martin Kaymer have both played well enough in the event in the past and although it has been a few weeks since his last start runner-up in Las Vegas Watney could again do well.

Kaymer has played well enough in European Tour events of late to be some sort of consideration despite the fact that he now flies under the radar to some extent.

Bo Van Pelt does not play outside the US often but he showed last week that he can play anywhere with a win that the CIMB Malaysia event against a near PGA Tour strength field.

Australia has eight representatives in the field headed by Adam Scott. Scott has taken a break from tournament golf in order to recharge the batteries for what will be a big schedule over the next few weeks. He was putting together a good run of events before his last start 6th at the Tour Championship and has played ok in this event previously.

Aaron Baddeley gets his start as a winner on the PGA Tour this season while Geoff Ogilvy and John Senden earn their right to play the event under the ’leading available five players from the Fed Ex Cup standings not otherwise exempt’ category.

Stuart Appleby, Alistair Presnell and Adam Bland earn their way into the field courtesy of their standing on the Australasian Tour money list and David Gleeson is in the field as a result of his win at the recent Indian Open.

For the likes of Presnell, Bland and Gleeson this will be one of the very few occasions where they have played in a US$7 million event

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