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Tour Talk - World Golf Championship in China is this week    Back to Topics  Page: 1 of 9     
From: tearwristgolf (1 of 85)   11/2/2009 3:50:31 AM
To:
The HSBC championship in China, which has been held since 2005 but is now a World Golf Championship, is attracting a great field this week.....yet many prominent American players are still skipping it.

7 of the top 10 players in the world are here, including #1 Tiger Woods and #2 Phil Mickelson, as well as #4 Paul Casey, #5 Lee Westwood, #6 Padraig Harrington, #7 Henrik Stenson and #9 Sergio Garcia, the defending champ. Among others in the field are Ernie Els, Y.E. Yang, Angel Cabrera, Camilo Villegas, Anthony Kim, Rory McIlroy, Ryo Ishikawa, Stewart Cink, Martin Kaymer and Ian Poulter.

But where are #3 Steve Stricker, #8 Kenny Perry, #10 Jim Furyk and US Open champ Lucas Glover? 20 of the top 30 players in the world are here, but what about the missing 10?

Tiger Woods: " I played in the HSBC Champions in 2005 and 2006 and I look forward to returning to Shanghai. It is an event that symbolises the amazing progress of golf in Asia and its new WGC status underlines how firmly China has established its place on the global golf calendar.”

Phil Mickelson: :“After The Open Championship, it is hard to think of a bigger and better tournament held outside America. This tournament already had everything in place and deserves to be part of the WGC series. It has always attracted strong fields and so has a great reputation worldwide and I am really looking forward to trying to reclaim my title.”

Y.E. Yang: “Winning the tournament in 2007 set the foundation for bigger things to come. It gave me the courage to achieve bigger goals like winning the PGA Championship. There were so many things that happened, but in the bigger picture it definitely changed my career because it gave the strength that I needed and the confidence and belief that I could achieve bigger things.”

British Open champ Stewart Cink: “I am really excited to be going to China for the first time. Anywhere the best players in the world are gathered together, you don’t want to miss out, and I think it is fantastic for world golf that China will be hosting the WGC-HSBC Champions.”

Defending champ Sergio Garcia: “I suppose being defending champion brings its own unique pressure but, actually, I feel more excited than anything else about going back to Shanghai. I’ll be the defending champion on a course I really enjoy and it goes without saying I’d love this to be the first tournament in my career that I successfully defend.”

Some of the top American players are reluctant to support the growth of world golf.

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From: bcjim-X (2 of 85)   11/2/2009 3:57:23 AM
To: tearwristgolf In response to Post 1
I don't get you agenda, but I have no interest in a tournament in an oppressive communist nation that goes out of its way to wreck our economy at every opportunity, sends us substandard products of all kinds, counterfeits anything and everything, and poisons baby food and dog food. Screew them.

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From: tearwristgolf (3 of 85)   11/2/2009 4:19:34 AM
To: bcjim-X In response to Post 2
So Stricker, Perry, Furyk and Glover are sure showing those Chinese by not showing up to play, right? As they slowly slide down in the world rankings, and are passed by Geoff Ogilvy, Ian Poulter, Martin Kaymer and Ross Fisher, at least they know their non-support had a big effect on the government in China. Maybe Padraig Harrington, Sergio Garcia, Geoff Ogilvy, and Rory McIlroy can boycott the Masters to force the U.S. government to change its policies too.

Golf should be part of a unifying common interest, not tools of governments.

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From: guanlan (4 of 85)   11/2/2009 4:23:55 AM
To: tearwristgolf In response to Post 1
Tear, Good morning.

Yes, this will be a great event and the field and course will lend itself to a "Major-like" feel.

Not meaning to defend Stricker, Perry, and Furyk but, to be competitive, a player really has to dedicate a minimum of 2 weeks to Asia in order to be at one's physical best. Quite frankly, going east coast to west coast or reverse, in the USA, should not bother anyone. I think it a bunch of bull to hear about baseball or football teams complaining about the flight they take, in private jets, and the time difference. However, the 12-hour time difference and the door to door 20-hour trip can play havoc with both mind and body. Therefore, in order to be at peak performance an athlete would need to arrive 4-5 days before his opening day tee time.

This is one reason why most players will head to Singapore the week before the HSBC or may find them somewher in Asia a few days earlier in order to adjust to the time change.

It appears that some players are "home- bodies"....certainly Perry is very open about the fact that he does not like, nor need, to travel.

Furyk? I am going to guess that he feels he has not had a "great" year and it is just best, for him, to shut it down. (Probably playing in Tiger's event? Not sure?) Plus, it appears that football season is more important to him than, possibly, winning a very important international event?

Stricker, as we know, is a hunter and probably feels that he HAS had a great season, wants to be in Wisconsin hunting with his buddies as opposed to taking a couple weeks in Asia.

Though, as you say, this event symbolizes the growth in golf, golf will grow without these 3 players. It is important, however, that players such as Kim, Mclroy, Ishikawa, Yang and some of the newer and younger future stars join the likes of Tiger, Phil, Padraig, Stenson, Casey and other top players in Shanghai.

We should remember that this is a very new event and even though Sheshan does its very best to make the players comfortable, it is a "strange" place, to many, who may not feel comfortable for a myriad of reasons. I am going to give those players a "pass" (probably because I like all three of them!)

Let's hope the HSBC lives up to competitive expectations and we have a great event to, basically, end golf's year.

GRW

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From: guanlan (5 of 85)   11/2/2009 4:34:07 AM
To: bcjim-X In response to Post 2
Another myopic poster!

Tear, look, you started this one, not me!

GRW



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From: cdnglf (6 of 85)   11/2/2009 4:35:22 AM
To: tearwristgolf In response to Post 1
Here's the qualifying criteria:
http://www.pgatour.com/tournaments/r489/qualify/index.html
There's spots for Chinese players and low-ranked guys who've won on the Australian Tour, Asian Tour and Japanese Tour, etc, over the past year but not many spots for top-ranked players who didn't win - it looks like the cut-off for non-winners was Anthony Kim, at #22. Ernie Els didn't make it in at #24 in the world - he probably hasn't been excluded from a tournament of significance for close to 20 years.

Seems goofy to me.

Edit: Vijay (ranked #20) didn't appear to qualify either, although its not clear to me why he didn't qualify and Kim did.

Edited 11/2/2009 4:47:00 AM by cdnglf

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From: tearwristgolf (7 of 85)   11/2/2009 4:46:01 AM
To: guanlan In response to Post 4
G, there has always been a few prominent American players who don't like to travel outside the U.S. If you remember back in the mid-'80s, Curtis Strange was the top ranked American and he refused to enter the British Open, and resisted all pressure to do so. He later regretted it, and called skipping the event when he was in his prime one of his biggest career mistakes.
But as you said, to each his own, and I do understand that it's a very long trip. But maybe American golf fans can begin to understand the very long trips prominent players like Angel Cabrera routinely take from South America, or Y.E. Yang from Korea, or Ernie Els and Retief Goosen from South Africa, or Geoff Ogilvy and Adam Scott from Australia, or Ryo Ishikawa and Shingo Katayama from Japan, or Jeev Milhka Singh from India, or Henrik Stenson from Sweden......just to compete in the U.S. against the world's best players.

I still feel this championship needs to move to a late January or February date to find its footing. It would be a great way to start the year for the world's best players, and the competition of the West Coast swing isn't as strong as it used to be, and those tournaments are now attracting weaker fields.

On another note, Tiger has won all over the world in 14 different countries.....yet China and Australia are still missing on his resume. That's where he'll be the next 2 weeks, China and Australia.



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From: tearwristgolf (8 of 85)   11/2/2009 4:48:40 AM
To: cdnglf In response to Post 6
Ernie is entered in the tournament, and will be playing. I'm not sure about the criteria for being in the field (I haven't really studied it), but I'm sure even that will change in the coming years.

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From: cdnglf (9 of 85)   11/2/2009 4:55:35 AM
To: tearwristgolf In response to Post 8
Thanks, I guess he got in because some of the guys you mentioned stayed home and the Viking Classic was cancelled. I can't find the confirmed field... are Vijay and Weir playing?
Edited 11/2/2009 4:57:00 AM by cdnglf

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From: tearwristgolf (10 of 85)   11/2/2009 5:04:05 AM
To: cdnglf In response to Post 9
Good question about Weir or Vijay, I'm not sure. I can't find the full field either, even on the European tour website. What I did find was that "7 out of the top 10 ranked players" are playing.....so by process of elimination, I guessed that Stricker, Perry and Furyk are missing. (If I'm wrong about them, I'll apologize, but I don't think I'm wrong.) I'm also guessing that Glover will be missing. I also found out that 20 of the top 30 ranked players in the world will be there, so feel free to guess who the missing 10 are.

If anybody can find a list of the full field on Monday, please post the link.

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