ADAM SCOTT heads the final World Golf Championship event of 2014 with the HSBC Champions taking place in Shanghai China from Thursday.
World No.1 Rory McIlroy hasn’t turned up at the Sheshan International Golf Club and it also won’t be seeing defending champion Dustin Johnson (off on some sort of special leave), Tiger Woods ( back injury), Phil Mickelson (taking an extended break) or top 10 golfers Jim Furyk, Jason Day and Matt Kuchar.
But otherwise it is still a very strong field with 40 of the top 50 players in the world rankings and 18 players from the Ryder Cup.
Joining Scott are fellow Aussies John Senden, Marc Leishman, Matt Jones and West Australian Brody Ninyette who gets a start thanks to his PGA Tour of Australasia money list ranking.
Maybe some of those absent are missing because they can’t work out if this is the end of the 2014 year or the beginning of the US PGA Tour’s new wrap-around season thingy.
“I guess it’s strange that this is the start of the new season, as it’s still in the same year, but that’s the way it is now,” Adam Scott said. “Obviously, it’s a very important tournament this week, and a good chance for me to get off to a good start and give myself some comfort early in the FedEx Cup season. But important to finish off well. I have three events after this in Australia, and certainly I want to find some good form for the next month or so.”
Favourites include Sergio Garcia, who was runner-up at the CIMB Classic in Malaysia last week and really does deserve a win sometime soon, Graeme McDowell, Martin Kaymer, Rickie Fowler, and of course Scott.
TV Times
Live Coverage on Fox Sports over the four days Thursday – Sunday 2pm – 7pm.
2014 World Golf Championships – HSBC Champions Leaderboard
2014 WGC – HSBC Champions Leaderboard