Italy's Quiet Golf Champion – Francesco Molinari

A year ago Francesco Molinari put the seal on a remarkable twelve months with one of the most sensational tournament displays ever seen in Asian golf, when he and Lee Westwood finished streets ahead of a world-class field at the WGC-HSBC Champions. Tim Maitland reports.

When Francesco “Chicco” Molinari briefly raised his hands in the air and gazed momentarily up the cheering Shanghai crowds in the grandstand at Sheshan last year, you would have had little clue from his body language that he had just gone eyeball to eyeball with the hottest player on the planet and won. 

Even now, when he looks back at the best performance, the biggest victory, the most spectacular year of his career and a season unparalleled in the history of Italian golf, his voice – a deep baritone – rumbles along at exactly the same steady, careful, unflustered pace. 

"It was very, very good. It was probably the best golf I’ve played so. When you’re playing against the number one in the world it doesn’t get any tougher than that, especially the way he was playing. It was just a great week for my confidence and my self-belief to see that I could compete against the best in the world," the 28-year-old explains, his tone showing no hint of the kind of excitement of someone describing the day and the week where he delivered a performance that he had strived for most of his life.

There’s no hint of exhilaration when he considers the culmination of a remarkable twelve months in his life. It started when he won the Omega Mission Hills World Cup for Italy with his older brother Edoardo in Shenzhen and continued when he twice played alongside Edoardo as his brother won his first European Tour events in Scotland. If that wasn’t enough the brothers, who were born a little under two years apart, paired up again to help Europe win the Ryder Cup and, circling the globe, Francesco returned to China to claim the biggest prize of his career taking his season earnings to within a few Euros of 2.8 million.

 The vanquished in this case is far more effusive than the victor.

“Last year’s event was great! Myself and Francesco ran away from the field! We played a different golf course that week!” exclaims Westwood, who was starting his first of what would be 22 weeks at number one.

“It was pretty much flawless golf,” Molinari muses modestly.

As the quiet champion, Molinari is perhaps destined to be filed in the same place that the 2006 Shanghai winner Yang Yong-Eun occupied until he became Asia’s first male Major Champion and his 2009 PGA Championship cast his previous achievements into a new light. Both are symbolic of the arrival of relatively new golfing nations to the sport’s top table and, at the times of their win, neither golfer had the same superstar status as some of the other names on the HSBC Champions roll of honour like Phil Mickelson (2007 & 2009) or Sergio Garcia (2008).

They have one other thing in common: to win both produced a performance so perfect that they remain a regular reference point.

“I try to revive the feeling I had that week. I played with such poise. It was my perfect tournament,” Yang said the week before he enshrined himself as a legend of Asian golf.

Molinari’s emotions are he’s exactly the same.

“Definitely! What is left for me from that week are the feelings that I had on the golf course; being competitive, being really in the moment and just the attitude I had on the golf course, rather than the game itself,” he says.

It’s hard enough to believe Francesco would need such a reference point, so unchanging is his demeanour: even people close to his family say that while brother Edoardo rides a more typically Italian emotional rollercoaster, Francesco never deviates.

What’s almost impossible to believe is his claim that, as a child, learning the game in Turin, his dentist-father frequently banned him for ‘throwing the toys out of the pram’.

“I used to throw clubs as a kid and swear and if my Dad saw me from other holes throwing clubs he wouldn’t let me play for a couple of weeks. That was the punishment for not behaving on the golf course,” Francesco explains.

“I think I was lucky to learn the lesson as a kid. When you turn professional you try really hard think about what you’re doing and not about what happened or what is going to happen. I think that’s what I did really well in Shanghai.”

Patience has proved a virtue in other ways too. At the insistence of their parents, both Edoardo and Francesco had to complete degrees at the University of Torino (Edoardo studying Engineering and Francesco choosing Business) before starting their golf careers.

Although the younger Molinari initially singles out improving year-on-year rather than his victories, there have been plenty of highlights in his professional life.

“The World Cup and the Ryder Cup were two of the biggest moments in my career. The win in Shenzhen was great, playing against Rory (McIlroy) and G-Mac (Graeme McDowell) in the last round and winning by one shot at the 18^th is always something special. Being the first World Cup success for Italy alongside my brother Edoardo was just something really unbelievable.

“The Ryder Cup is an unbelievable experience; different from any other emotion you can feel on the golf course. The first morning we were not even playing and when we went to the tee they started chanting “There’s only two Molinaris” and it was just a lot of fun. I thought it was one of the best chants of the week. It’s a lot of tension and a lot of pressure but at the same time it’s also a lot of fun because you don’t play for money, you don’t play for world ranking points… you just play for winning and the team.”

As for the steady improvement, Molinari admits that the law of diminishing returns applies as you get into the jet set of tour society. This year he has strived for a little more distance and in the process lost some of the pinpoint accuracy.

That’s not the only change. This year Molinari has played fewer events to make room for the Majors and other WGC tournaments that his HSBC Champions win has allowed him to add to the cream of the European Tour’s events.  The results haven’t been bad – top 10s in the Abu Dhabi HSBC Golf Championship, Volvo World Match Play Championship and the BMW Italian Open and, the highlight, a third place finish at the WGC-Cadillac Championship – but they haven’t been as consistent as previous seasons.

The other big adjustment has been the arrival of his first child, a son Tommaso, born this year on February 5^th.

“Life changes after a baby. You have to adapt to the new condition of being a parent, but it’s fun. As soon as he smiles you forget about anything that happened – good or bad – on the golf course. It gives you a different perspective,” Molinari reveals.

So, Molinari returns to the HSBC Champions not quite on the crest of the wave that swept him to the biggest win of his career, but looking forward to defending his title on what he describes as “a phenomenal” 18 holes of golf.

“It’s going to be different! We won the World Cup in China and now I’ve won in Shanghai; obviously I really like playing in China! It’s going to be fun to be back there another year. The HSBC Champions was just the climax of a fantastic year for me. I’m really looking forward to going back there this year and try and do the same,” he says.

How he’ll be received will be interesting. Perhaps like “YE” Yang Yong-Eun it will only be a Major championship that will make a nation relatively new to the sport re-evaluate the near-perfection he displayed last year.

If Francesco Molinari doesn’t get the recognition from the golfing public, the player he vanquished believes the Italian certainly has got it from his peers; the people that matter most.

“I think he did by all the players. That’s who you want recognition from,” Westwood says.

“He played very nicely,” the Englishman adds.

It’s a comment that sums up Francesco Molinari perfectly; simply because it is so understated.

Francesco Molinari Profile:

Personal

Nationality: Italian

Born: 8^th November 1982, Turin (Torino) Italy

Height/Weight: 5ft 8in/11st 5lb (172cm/72kg)

Family: Wife Valentina (m. 2007). Son Tommaso (b. 2010)

Lives: London, England

Education: Degree in Business, University of Torino (Università degli Studi di Torino/UNITO)

Other interests: Snowboarding, Football (Supports Inter Milan and West Ham United)

Career

Professional wins:

2010 WGC-HSBC Champions, Sheshan International Golf Club, Shanghai China

2010 Ryder Cup, Celtic Manor Resort, Newport, Wales

2009 Omega Mission Hills World Cup, Mission Hills, Guangdong, China (with Edoardo Molinari)

2006 Telecom Italian Open, Castello di Tolcinasco G & CC, Milan, Italy

Other Professional Landmarks:

November 2010: career-best 5^th place in the European Tour’s “race to Dubai” order of merit

October 2009: reached top 50 of the Official Golf World Rankings for the first time

2004: Turned pro after earning his European Tour card at his first attempt at Q School

Amateur wins:

2004 Italian Amateur Stroke Play Championship; Italian Match Play Championship; Sherry Cup, Spain

2002 Italian Amateur Stroke Play Championship; Italian Amateur Foursomes Championship (with Edoardo Molinari)

2010 HSBC Champions victory:

Became the first wire-to-wire winner in the history of the HSBC Champions

His first European Tour victory since the 2006 Italian Open – a gap of four years and 185 days and 125 European Tour events between victories

His first WGC victory of his career, in his fifth WGC appearance

Moved into the top 15 of the Official World Golf Ranking; his highest career position

Marked the first time since the WGC events started in 1999 that European Tour members had won three events in the same year (Ian Poulter (WGC – Accenture Match Play), Ernie Els (WGC – CA Championship)

Became the 17th different winner of a WGC event, while Italy became the ninth different country to win a WGC event

The Molinaris joined Seve and Manuel Ballesteros, who in 1983 both won, as the only brothers to win in the same European Tour season. (1983 Seve – PGA Championship, Irish Open and Trophée Lancôme; Manuel – Timex Open. 2010 Francesco – WGC-HSBC Champions; Edoardo – Barclays Scottish Open and Johnnie Walker Championship)

Voice your opinion on Twitter @ Golf4Beginners and friend us on Facebook

Read more articles by Tim Maitland

 

The "crying shame" about Tiger Woods golf vs Westwood, Molinari duel

When it comes to deciding the highlights of 2010 there are plenty of contenders for most dominant display and an obvious winner of the most exciting moment of the year in golf. However a special category should be saved for the display of Francesco Molinari and Lee Westwood at the WGC-HSBC Champions for producing one of those most-cherished moments in tournament golf; a good old-fashioned duel! Tim Maitland reports.

No-one in their right mind could argue against that rain-sodden reenactment of the Somme – the drama at the Monday denouement of the Celtic Manor Ryder Cup – as the highlight of the year. Special mention would go to the three-way play-off for the PGA Championship at Whistling Straits (Dustin Johnson eventually being penalized for grounding his club in a “bunker” on his 72^nd hole, while Martin Kaymer saw off Bubba Watson): an Oscar winner in any other year. The individual performance? Louis Oosthuizen taking the Open Championship by seven shots at the home of golf would probably eclipse Cristie Kerr’s 12-shot victory at the LPGA Championship in most books, mainly because it’s St Andrews above Locust Hill.

They wouldn’t have a category for what happened at Sheshan International Golf Club in the WGC-HSBC Champions for the simple reason that two players almost never run away from a world-class field the way that Francesco Molinari and Lee Westwood did in finishing ten and nine shots ahead.

“It’s very rare: very unusual indeed. Often you get one person that streaks away, but two separating themselves that much is unusual,” said former Ryder Cup player and winner of the inaugural tournament in Shanghai David Howell.

“It just goes to show how well both of them played, ultimately how much Francesco deserved to win and how unlucky Lee was.”

A quick straw poll of the professionals on the driving range produces a lot of scratching of heads as to when they personally witnessed a similar moment of classic head-and-shoulders-above-the-rest hand-to-hand combat.

“Probably once every five years you’ll see two guys; it’s sort of like they get on a crest of a wave and they’re playing each other, feeding off each other and they just keep going. With a top-class field it’s very rare,” said Australian veteran Tony “TC” Carolan.

“You see these old classic tournaments where you get these fantastic duels because they’re playing together. They go along together, they played together over the weekend because they were so far ahead and they just kept going away from the field. It’s basically two different tournaments running at the same time! One and two are playing it out and the others are playing for third.”

True to that patent, the Molinari-Westwood encounter began from the start. The Ryder Cup teammates were first and second just one shot apart after the first round at Sheshan and finished each day in the same positions with the same margin as they left golf’s great and good trailing in their dust. There is one obvious comparison to make: The Duel on the Bund and the great, the legendary Duel in the Sun.

“The classic one was, of course, Nicklaus and Watson; the Open Championship at Turnberry in 1977.

Shanghai? It definitely belongs with it. What was good about Shanghai was that they’d drawn away; the only one that was similar was 1977, because they were away from everybody else and there were just the two of them at it,” declared TV commentator Renton Laidlaw, himself something of a legend in the game and one of the few people qualified to make the comparison because he was at both Turnberry 30-odd years ago, working as BBC Radio’s report and covering for London’s Evening Standard, and at Sheshan in November as a Golf Channel commentator.

“It was absolutely fantastic. Watson had won the Masters that year. They lapped the field. The guy that was third, Hubert Green, was 10 shots behind them, it was rather similar to Shanghai.”

There was one other person present in Shanghai, who was also at Turnberry in 77. Laidlaw’s Golf Channel colleague Warren Humphreys, a former English Amateur champions and winner on the European Tour (the 1995 Portuguese Open), not only played the Open Championship that year but had a hole in one. He agrees that isn’t a stretch to start comparing the two duels.

“It was a special week. If you look at Shanghai, in the end it was the first round score that won the tournament and after that they matched each other score for score. That’s similar to the Duel in the Sun; they matched each other score for score apart from one shot in the final round,” Humphreys said.

“The Duel in the Sun: Watson was at his peak and holing putts and Jack played OK… and it’s one of the legendary performances.  Jack with his B+ game and Tom had everything going – A plus-plus – and that’s right because Nicklaus was so much better than everyone else. Like Tiger, Nicklaus’s 15^th club [his mind] was one shot a round – that’s four shots a tournament – better than anyone else. He would win more just because of the way he could think and the way he could handle pressure"

For a six-year-old event to even be allowed into the same conversation with one of the greatest tournaments in golf history is flattering to say the least.

“Obviously, what Francesco and Lee did was world-class – I think, even in such a short history, the HSBC Champions has proved you don’t win it unless you’re playing at the highest level – but to hear it’s being mentioned in the same breath as the Duel in the Sun is one of the greatest compliments that can possibly be paid,” said Giles Morgan, HSBC Group Head of Sponsorship.

“The history of the sport is so precious and so revered I don’t think I would have dared make the comparison, but then when you hear people talking who were at Turnberry, and in Warren’s case played in the ‘ 77 Open, and who were also at Shanghai, you have to respect their point of view and be grateful for it.”

There are, of course, some ways in which the Duel on the Bund can’t begin to rival the Duel in the Sun. When Nicklaus arrived in Turnberry he already had 14 of his record 18 major championship victories under his belt. By the end of that week Watson would have three of his career total of eight and would become only the fourth player in history (after Arnold Palmer in 1960, Gary Player in 1974 and Nicklaus himself in 1975) to win multiple majors in the same season.

“There were two players at the top of their game,” explained Laidlaw, who is also the editor of the annual R&A Golfer’s Handbook.

“And I think Jack (Nicklaus) always enjoyed the competition more than he enjoyed winning. I think he would have won more if he’d been more intent on winning. He liked to win, but what gave him the real thrill was the competition. If he lost, but it had been a great competition, that satisfied him. "

Laidlaw went on to say, "That battle with him and Watson was a classic. I always remember Watson saying that he knew, even at the last green, at which point he was one ahead, and even though Nicklaus had been in the bush and had played a recovery shot onto the green and was some 20 or 30 feet away, he said “I knew he would hole it”.  And of course he did. 

Watson said, because I knew he would hole that, “I’d already made up my mind that I would have to hole my putt” – it was only a short putt, 2 ½ or 2 feet – he said “I knew that I’d have to hole it to win”. It meant so much to Watson to beat Nicklaus; beating Nicklaus was always the key. He was as happy to beat Nicklaus as [Isao] Aoki was unhappy to lose to Nicklaus when they battled very closely in the 1980 US Open at Baltusrol. They came to the wire as well and Nicklaus refused to let Aoki win that one. Aoki was trying to become the first far eastern or Asian winner of a Major. That was a great battle.”

It’s debatable, as with so many of the other great battles, as to whether the Aoki-Nicklaus encounter of 1980 qualifies as a duel. Aoki only got on terms with Nicklaus in the third round and he and the Golden Bear only escaped the rest of the field – led by Watson, Lon Finkle and Keith Fergus – on the final day.

“It is really hard to come up with other tournaments, Majors anyway, where two people have fought it out. If you could really put your mind to it you could probably think of a few more, but there’s not that many. Sometimes you find there’s a duel over one round or over the last 27 holes, but you don’t get it for four rounds,” Humphreys said, having racked his brains along with Laidlaw to compile a list of possibilities.

“With the best will in the world, Faldo at the [1996] Masters with Greg Norman, where he caught up on that big lead, wasn’t the same, because Faldo played well but Norman collapsed. In Shanghai you had two people peaking, not one falling apart and one playing well. Every now and then you get special weeks. Normally it takes one player to be on their peak form to win a tournament. If you get two players who are peaking at the same time and who are not afraid to win and are confident in their own ability then you get a very special moment, but it happens rarely. I think it was an exceptional performance. I think the way that Molinari played stretched Westwood and then Westwood stretched Molinari and when you get two players that play like that, and they were both very confident in their game (and I think Molinari produced one of the best putting weeks of his career), then you get a special week.”

What’s interesting is how far we have to look back for comparisons and how few times during Tiger Woods' domination that anything approaching a duel came to fruition. The main exception would be Tiger’s 14^th Major – the 2008 US Open at Torrey Pines – when Rocco Mediate took him through an 18-hole play-off into sudden death. But then even that doesn’t fit with our definition of the duel, as Westwood was only one shot behind after 72 holes.

“That’s the Tiger influence, isn’t it? For a lot of the Major championships he’s decimated fields himself and he hasn’t had anybody to play against when he’s been on top form. I think that’s the crying shame about the era of Tiger Woods,” said Humphreys.

“The Nicklaus era was tremendous because he had so many rich players, talented players exciting players, charismatic players alongside him; Palmer, Player, Trevino, Floyd, Watson… you can name a whole bunch of them. Lots of talented players… Curtis Strange… and he beat them all over a 30-year period. Tiger, in a way, hasn’t had that. I think in a way it’s to the detriment of Tiger because I think he in a way would have liked to have been stretched and to find out what he would have done if he had had someone pushing him.”

For the 2010 WGC-HSBC Champions to truly deserve to sit in proximity with the 1977 Open Championship, it may take time: time for history to ferment, time for Westwood and Francesco Molinari to cement their reputations so that their battle becomes a part of golf folklore.

At this point Laidlaw, a recipient of the PGA Tour’s Lifetime Achievement Award in Journalism, disagrees:

“The plain fact is you can take all these duels, just as the duels of that time. If they never do anything ever again – in both these cases I think they will [be successful again] – you can’t take away from them the fact that their duel in the HSBC Champions was marvelous to watch. One holed a putt then the other holed a putt; it was just fantastic how they did that. Whether they do or don’t go onto to win Majors doesn’t take anything away from the excitement and drama they produced in Shanghai, which was riveting, riveting!” the 71-year-old Scot states.

The fact is though that, if Westwood turns his spell as world number one into a fully-fledged reign and if he can turn his 2000 European Tour Order of Merit and 2009 Race to Dubai wins and his consistency in Majors – two third places in 2009 and two second places in 2010 – into the Major victories that define greatness, then what both he and Francesco Molinari achieved in Shanghai will be looked on in a new light, not that what Westwood did wasn’t incredible enough as it is.

Troubled by an unusual calf injury that left his ankle swollen, the Nottinghamshire native limped to second place at the Open Championship, withdrew because of the injury from the WGC-Bridgestone Invitational, came back only for the Ryder Cup and returned rusty for the WGC-HSBC Champions just in time to replace Tiger Woods at the top of the Official World Golf Rankings. He also faced a four-way struggle for his right to keep that title and faced questions, particularly from the States, as to whether a non-Major winner could be considered worthy of the top spot.

“Perfect timing!” said Howell of Westwood’s showing at Sheshan.

“It was daunting, it’s a wonderful position to be number one in the world, but there are responsibilities and the expectations that come with that and, as always, Lee dealt with them brilliantly. Obviously winning would have been doing it in style, but he put on a world-class performance as well!”

The other half of the equation is what Francesco Molinari does from here. Apart from claiming the Omega Mission Hills World Cup with his brother Edoardo in 2009, Francesco hadn’t won since his maiden European Tour victory at the 2006 Telecom Italia Open. However, if his HSBC Champions win proves to be typical of how he is going to play in 2011 he will be looked upon in a very different light by the end of the year.

“Molinari is almost beginning the journey, although he’s been a good player for four or five years. I think with Molinari, if he continues to putt with the sort of confidence he had that week [in Shanghai] then you could be looking at another very special player,” Humphreys declares.

“The thing with Molinari is his stature. He’s not a tall guy. He’s got to be playing at his best and at his peak all the time to compete against some of the big boomers that are in the game. Francesco’s got a wonderful game from tee to green and he hasn’t changed that for a number of years. His swing is consistently sound year on year. The biggest killer for most people; they get to a certain point and they think I must change to get better and they actually change to get worse. If he stays that way and his short game stays good… I think the overriding thing about Molinari’s performance is he doesn’t get scared. That’s a fantastic quality to have as a golfer. He talked about it afterwards as a pressure situation, but he never showed it. The fact that he went out against Tiger in the Ryder Cup and was two up after two and Tiger had to shoot nine under to beat him: Tiger would have beaten any other player on either side the way he played on that particular day. It shows strength of character and I think that strength of character is a big club in the bag for Molinari.”

It was incredible that Molinari seemed to stay completely unflustered as the pressure in the tournament mounted. Bogey-free in his final round, he made perhaps one mistake on the Sunday: missing a short par for birdie on the par five 14^th hole. Westwood was bogey-free the entire weekend, but at the pivotal moment – Sheshan’s world-renowned driveable par four 16^th – it was the Englishman who blinked first. It’s hard to call his three wood off the tee a mistake though. He missed his target by a matter of a yard, got a hard bounce forward and found himself snookered behind the evil pot-bunker that guards the left side of the green. Like Tiger did in exactly the same position the year before, Westwood left the gossamer-fine chip in the long grass above the bunker and the pressure was off.

Still, on eighteen he could have forced a play-off. His five-iron second seemed certain to take the slope down to the hole, but somehow circled the ridge and stayed on the higher level and the duel was over.

“I feel sorry for Westwood because he’d come second in two Majors earlier in the season and here he was coming second again to a guy who was playing, arguably, the best golf of his career. I don’t think he’s ever played as well as that. He may never again, but let’s hope he does,” Laidlaw declares.

“He’s now shown he can do it. What an inspiration it might be to Molinari, wwho knows what he’ll do having hung on and proved himself that he can do it.”

And if Molinari does go on from here?

“We will look back and say that’s when it started. It started because suddenly he realized just what he was capable of. He was always sure he had that capability, but in Shanghai on the course, he did it for real against one of the strongest of opponents: Westwood had played well all season,” said the doyen of British golf writers and broadcasters.

There is one final aspect that the Duel on the Bund does compare and deserves to stand alongside the Duel in the Sun: the level of sportsmanship showed. Refreshingly there was no sense that Molinari felt he had banished, triumphed over, conquered or even that he had defeated Westwood. Westwood himself afterwards said there were “no negatives” in a performance like his and, when his attempt at an eagle putt on 18 rolled past the hole, there was nothing in his behavior at that instant that suggested otherwise.

“Watson and Nicklaus both respected each other so much; they enjoyed battling with each other. It was one of the great adverts for the game. It was in the most sporting manner between two players who between them won eight Open Championships,” Laidlaw recalls. 

“When Watson and Nicklaus were finished, Nicklaus was right there to say “well done, many congratulations”. When Molinari won, Westwood was right there saying “many congratulations”. That’s what it’s all about! The competition! They love the competition! It’s part of the game!”

The Duel on the Bund vs. The Duel in the Sun

First Round

2010 WGC-HSBC Champions

1   Francesco Molinari                      Italy                   65        -7

2   Lee Westwood                                 England                     66        -6

T3 Yuta Ikeda                                    Japan                 67        -5

     Henrik Stenson                             Sweden              67

     Noh Seung-Yul                             South Korea       67

1977 Open Championship

1   John Schroeder                                 United States            66        -4

2   Martin Foster                                    England                     67        -3

T3 Jack Nicklaus                                    United States           68        -2

     Lee Trevino                                       United States            68

     Tom Watson                                    United States           68

Second Round

2010 WGC-HSBC Champions

1   Francesco Molinari                      Italy                   65-70=135       -9

2   Lee Westwood                                 England                     66-70=136       -8

T3 Ernie Els                                       South Africa       72-65=137       -7

     Jaco Van Zyl                                 South Africa       71-66=137      

     Richie Ramsey                             Scotland             69-68=137

1977 Open Championship

1   Roger Maltbie                               United States       71-66=137       -3

T2 Hubert Green                                United States       72-66=138       -2

     Jack Nicklaus                               United States       68-70=138

       Lee Trevino                                 United States       68-70=138

       Tom Watson                                United States    68-70=138

Third Round

2010 WGC-HSBC Champions

1   Francesco Molinari                      Italy          65-70-67=202              -14

2   Lee Westwood                               England    66-70-67=203             -13

3   Luke Donald                                 England     68-70-68=206             -10

1977 Open Championship

T1 Jack Nicklaus                               United States    68-70-65=203  -7

     Tom Watson                                United States      68-70-65=203

3   Ben Crenshaw                              United States     71-69-66=206  -4

Fourth Round

2010 WGC-HSBC Champions

1   Francesco Molinari                     Italy                65-70-67-67=269        -19

2   Lee Westwood                            England            66-70-67-67=270        -18

T3 Richie Ramsey                           Scotland            69-68-71-71=279        -9

     Luke Donald                                England            68-70-68-73=279       

  

1977 Open Championship

1   Tom Watson                               United States    68-70-65-65=268        -12

2   Jack Nicklaus                           United States    68-70-65-66=269        -11

3   Hubert Green     

picture credits: Getty images/Tim Maitland

Read more Tim Maitland articles on Golf for Beginners

Follow Golf4Beginners on Twitter and Voice Your Opinion!

Posted via email from stacysolomon's posterous

What Tiger Woods considers The Crowning Jewel of All of Asian Golf

It took just one staging of the WGC-HSBC Champions to dispel all doubts as to whether a World Golf Championships event could succeed in Asia. Tim Maitland reports on how the Shanghai tournament has spearheaded another step up the ladder for tournament golf in Asia.

At some stage between the inception of the HSBC Champions in 2005 and Tiger Woods last year calling it “the crowning jewel of all of Asian golf", golf in Asia made a transition. Not that the autumn swing to the East was ever just a bit of fun - the big names that did travel certainly lived up to their billing – but now there is little question that Asia has taken its place at the top table of top-class tournament play.

The who, what, why, when, where of Asia’s coming of age? The “where?” is a no-brainer. The venue: the Nelson & Haworth design Sheshan International Golf Club. The “who?” or “what?” is just as easy: the HSBC Champions - whether through its winners-only fields, the champions it produces or the prize money it offers – has clearly spearheaded the transition. Quite when that moment occurred is slightly more difficult to pin down.

It would be simplistic to say that point came with the announcement in April 2009 that the World Golf Championships, the elite-level tournaments introduced in 1999 to create a clearer structure of top tournaments beneath the Majors, was including Shanghai in its schedule.

By then Padraig Harrington had already declared, as the holder of both the Open and PGA Championship titles, that it was his opinion that creating the HSBC Champions was “a turning point for Asian golf” and few would dispute that the actual tipping point was the inaugural year. Tiger Woods, arguably the greatest golfer ever seen to cross the Pacific, graced the new tournament whose US $5 million purse instantly placed it at the top of the Asian tree, and the fervor which his appearances in the first two years generated did much to fuel the growing appetite for golf in China.

The 2006 edition wouldn’t get too many votes even though the eventual winner Yang Yong-Eun, then relatively unknown outside his native Korea and Japan (where he had won four times in just over two years), had to fend off the challenges of Woods, that year’s Open Championship and PGA Championship winner, and 2004 US Open Champion Retief Goosen and his successor in 2005, Michael Campbell.

The 2007 HSBC Champions was a watershed, not just because it tempted Phil Mickelson – then one of world golf’s least-travelled superstars – to cross oceans, but because it resulted in the world number two’s first overseas victory worthy of the name (the other, at EuroDisney near Paris in 1993 was a European satellite tour event).

Those who would argue that world-class status comes when winning a tournament get on Tiger’s radar, might suggest that Phil pointing out the pleasure he got from having his name etched in the silverware before the letters W-o-o-d-s were scratched on it, instantly confirmed the HSBC Champions place in the world order: always looking for the slightest slight to put right, Tiger would never let such a self-motivating opportunity pass unnoticed.

By 2008 it was beyond all doubt. The winner, Sergio Garcia, overtook Mickelson as the world number two. Never before had an Asian event had that sort of impact on the Official World Golf Ranking. There was no doubt that world-class golf had finally arrived.

“You can write it into the history books!” declared 2008 Masters Champion Trevor Immelman at the time.

Once the event became the only WGC tournament, and thus by definition the most important tournament in the world, not to have been claimed by Woods. The blip on the radar screen grew even larger. 

To the world’s local bank, arguing the semantics of exactly when they spearheaded the arrival of truly world-class golf is deemed irrelevant, as long as everyone is agreeing that it has.

“The goal was to refocus our global tournaments in Asia and create Asia’s first truly-world class golf tournament, and I don’t think anyone would argue that we have achieved that,” explains Giles Morgan, HSBC Group Head of Sponsorship.

“What’s even more pleasing is that in achieving our goal we’ve been able to showcase the strengths of our business and there aren’t many companies who are able to achieve that through their sports sponsorships. We didn’t gamble to bring the HSBC Champions to Shanghai. We assessed the appetite in the relevant markets very carefully. We asked and answered key questions: Is Asia ready for world-class golf? Are our customers and potential clients among those yearning for an event of that stature? Are the world’s top golfers ready to travel that far on a consistent basis? Are the other key elements in place or achievable to guarantee a successful engagement? The answers back then were ‘Yes’ and here we are, six years later, proved right.”

Just how quickly the American media embraced that sentiment is further proof. Until last year, the WGC events had only once before ventured outside the sport’s traditional American and European heartlands (the 2001 Accenture Match Play Championship in Australia). One golf writer described the initial response to the announcement of WGC status for the Shanghai event – debating an asterisk based around the fact that the HSBC Champions prize money won’t count to the PGA Tour order of merit, while failing to notice that its slot in November after the FedEx Cup makes the money list virtually irrelevant to any player successful enough to qualify for the event – as “myopic”. It took just one edition of the HSBC Champions as a WGC event for the same writers to start campaigning for some of the so-called asterisks to be removed. The PGA Tour reacted quickly, making victory in Shanghai count as an official win for its members.

Naturally tournament organisers expected it to take a little time before all of the American golfers – famously described by Australia’s Stuart Appleby as “like a bag of prawns on a hot Sunday” because “they don’t travel well” – to fully embrace the travel involved for the fourth WGC event of the year. The reality is that the quality of the field – including Tiger’s commitment to play his fourth HSBC Champions this year – will mean that so many ranking points are available that any golfer who cares about his place in the world order has quickly recognised that he needs to be in Shanghai.

Ironically, the global downturn has helped accelerate cementing the WGC-HSBC Champions status. With economies of the US and Europe slowing or in recession, the global golf brands, whether they’re the golfers themselves or the sponsors who leverage their products off them, all need the newer markets to keep improving their bottom line.

PGA commissioner Tim Finchem certainly had few doubts when he declared that elevating the HSBC Champions into the WGC stable was: “One of the most significant steps ever taken in the globalization of golf, and one of the most logical.”  

“World-class golf has arrived on this continent and the map of the golf world may never look the same,” he added… and, with the 2010 WGC-HSBC Champions on course to match the 2009 event’s status in having the second best field of the year outside the United States (beaten only, and naturally, by the (British) Open Championship) he’s almost certainly right.

Sidebars:

2009 Champion: Phil Mickelson (USA)

All eyes, including record crowds that created the feel of a Major as queues snaked for hundreds of yards outside the course, were on Phil Mickelson and Tiger Woods who were paired together in the final group for the final round.

However a near-immaculate round from “The Big Easy” Ernie Els led to a very different finish. The whole tournament hinged on just a few moments of utter drama as the big South African, who would sign for a course record nine-under-par 63, dumped his approach to 18 in the water just as Mickelson holed “the best putt I made all week” to save par at the spectacular 16^th hole.

The American held on to win by a single shot. The next day the producer of the live TV coverage shook his tired head saying “this event has packed 15 years of history into five”.

“I thought that this was a very successful first run as a World Golf Championships event. I think it has momentum to continue to move up in status and importance over the next four or five years, and I'm curious to see where it ends up,” Phil Mickelson.

2008 Champion: Sergio Garcia (ESP)

The 2008 HSBC Champions produced another historical moment for golf in Asia when Sergio Garcia won at Sheshan to become the new world number two. Never before had an Asian tournament had such a significant impact on the world ranking.

Garcia’s win came from yet another dramatic play-off on the 18^th hole, which he’d birdied in regulation to force extra holes with fellow European Ryder Cup member Oliver Wilson of England. Wilson, searching for the win that would back-up his reputation as one of the more rapidly improving players in world golf, shaved the hole with a birdie putt on the second play-off hole leaving the door open for Garcia who holed out from around 12 feet to clinch victory.        

“You have to come and show yourself here. You can’t just play in the US and Continental Europe. Asia is definitely a global player. The HSBC Champions is a great tournament. They’ve been raising the bar every year. It’s been getting a stronger and stronger field and the course has been improving every year.” Sergio Garcia. 

2007 Champion: Phil Mickelson (USA)

The nail-biting drama of the 2007 HSBC Champions proved beyond doubt that the Sheshan International Golf Club had matured into a worthy test for the world’s top golfers and the eventual victory by world number two Phil Mickelson rubber-stamped the credentials of the HSBC Champions as a truly world-class tournament.

With 11 holes left, Mickelson led by five shots and looked invincible. By the time he reached the par-five 18^th green, Mickelson had picked up the sixth of his penalty shots in his wayward final round as he risked going for the green in two, found water. He was only let into a three-way play-off when Englishman Ross Fisher chipped into the water too and made double bogey.

Playing the 18^th twice in the play-off with Fisher and Lee Westwood, Mickelson finally clinched the first significant win of his career outside the United States sticking one of his trademark “flop shots” to within six feet and holing out as daylight faded to make birdie.

“It is nice to win a tournament that Tiger has tried to win the last couple of years unsuccessfully. It's very exciting to me to be able to win this tournament.” Phil Mickelson.

2006: Yang Yong-Eun (KOR) 274 (-14)

At the time Yang Yong-Eun’s two-shot victory over Tiger Woods, denying the American his quest for a seventh-successive stroke-play victory, was viewed as a huge surprise, even though the Korean had four Japan Tour victories under his belt. With the benefit of hindsight the late-blooming Yang’s win, which halved his world-ranking to take him to 38^th position, was more an indication of a talent that would also take him into the winner’s circle on the PGA Tour.

The pattern was similar to David Howell’s win before, with Yang engineering himself a winning position on the front nine on the final day ahead of recent Major champions Woods, Retief Goosen and Michael Campbell. As in 2005, Tiger made a late charge, but again left himself too much to do.

“This is such a big thing that's happening to me right now, such a big moment in my life right now, that it's really hard for me to explain in words how I feel right now.” Yang Yong-Eun.

2005 Champion: David Howell (ENG) 268 (-20)

Tiger-mania struck Shanghai for the richest tournament to be staged in the Asia-Pacific region in 2005, but it was the softly-spoken Englishman David Howell, a member of Europe’s 2004 Ryder Cup winning team, who lifted the trophy in the inaugural tournament.

Holding a one-shot overnight lead, Howell quickly distanced himself from the world number one with four birdies in the opening seven holes. Woods, who would give Howell his “Cool Dude” nickname that day, made one last desperate bid for the win by going for the green at the short par-four 16^th. Tiger Woods instead found the water hazard, saying afterwards "I had to go for it and try to go for birdie or best part, eagle," and Howell held on to record the biggest victory of his career by three shots.

"We're all honored as golfers to have the chance to try and beat him. So I guess any time anyone plays against Tiger in the last day, it's almost like the FA Cup Final for the underdogs and I was able to come on top.” David Howell.

Posted via email from stacysolomon's posterous

European Tour Shanghai's PGA Tour golfers on road to Dubai. Mickelson swing changes tested at HSBC and Thumb Caddy training aid

Click here to listen.

The European Tour is sending a message to PGA Tour players, loud and clear, that a new era in golf is beginning with the 2009 season.

A new spruced-up tour, in which the European Order of Merit has been replaced with "The Race to Dubai" offers a $10 million pie at the end of the season with another shared purse after the season-ending Dubai World Championship.

Phil Mickelson may be defending this week at the first stop on the Euro Tour, the HSBC Champions in Shanghai, but guys like Anthony Kim and Camilo Villegas are ready to pounce. Villegas, for example, is not content to just play, he's "definitely going there to win." Mickelson, on the other hand, is hoping that swing changes he has been working on since 2007 will finally take effect. We discuss a few of these swing changes in this week's show.

With players like Padraig Harrington, Sergio Garcia and Adam Scott working towards another FedEx Cup-like purse on the European Tour, how soon will it be before golfers like Anthony Kim "jump ship" entirely and shift alliances? Or, perhaps one day, the PGA Tour might be forced to "merge" with the European Tour forming one huge conglomerate. Then there would be no more "off-season", no more "silly season" and viewers would be able to watch their favorite golfers throughout the year!

As Garcia noted, "Some of the tournaments we play in the Middle East ... are bigger than the ones they play in the U.S. You get good players there, so world rankings points increase. At the end of the day, that's what the big players do it for."

Of course, if Tiger Woods has any input, his new golf course in Dubai might just host one of these events. Woods' foray into golf course design is yielding several new courses, possibly with a consideration towards building his own "mini-tour". It is conceivable that Tiger could one day be "tapped" as the head of this global Tour...perhaps aptly named the World Tour! Who knows...stranger things have happened!

We also review Thumb Caddy, an inexpensive training aid which helps keep hands in their proper position throughout the golf swing.

Send your golf questions and comments to golfforbeginners@worldgolf.com.

Subscribe to our weekly podcast through this RSS feed:http://feeds.feedburner.com/golfforbeginners or through iTunes.

Subscribe to our newsletter!
Click Here to receive our archived podcasts and 100's of easy golf tips free!

Check us out on MySpace!

"Shiny Tech" courtesy of Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)"

This podcast is supported by Premier Golf, 888-439-1831.


Photo Credit: © OverseasPropertyMall.com