Martin Kaymer, newest golf hero?

Martin Kaymer ended the run of first-time winners lifting the sport’s top trophies and lifted himself above the crowd when he won the WGC-HSBC Champions. Shooting a record low winning round for the World Golf Championships, the German’s nine birdies in his last nine holes propelled him over a leader board packed with recent WGC and Major winners and past overnight leader Fredrik Jacobson to a nine-under-par 63 final round and a three-shot victory. Tim Maitland reports.

“To shoot 63 in a final round is always great, but on a golf course like this and in a World Golf Championships is obviously special. The way I played was different. It was really special," recalled Kaymer.

"I can’t remember a day when I played golf like this. My putting was outstanding," said 26-year-old Kaymer, who, having won the 2010 PGA Championship becomes the first of golf’s new breed to follow up his first big breakthrough win with another top-level victory.

Kaymer’s late charge lifted him above a leader board that seemed to have most of the contenders to the crown of being the game’s next dominant player. Reigning US Open champion Rory McIlroy and Masters champion Charl Schwartzel finished tied for fourth along with Paul Casey while 2010 US Open winner Graeme McDowell came third.

“If Martin Kaymer had not skipped the last couple of holes, we might all have had a chance,” joked the Northern Irishman, who got to see some of Kaymer’s fireworks from the group behind.

“He's an unbelievable frontrunner; when he gets a sniff of a win ‑‑ he's pretty prolific and very clinical when it comes to finishing.  Hats off to him!  He's a classy player and he was impossible to catch out there.”

Casey, marking a return to form after a season plagued by a toe problem, had initially threatened to be the one making a winning charge making five birdies. He was slowed by the return of a swing fault caused by the injury but had the best seat in the house playing in the winner’s group.

“He didn't flinch.  It was very good stuff from him. [I had a] front row seat for Martin Kaymer, watching, that because that was a brilliant performance.”

In the long-term, perhaps just as impressive was the achievement of relatively unknown local player Zhang Xinjun beating the previous record for the highest finish by a Chinese player at the HSBC Champions. A professional for only a year, the 24-year old from the Terracotta Warrior city of Xian tied for thirteenth alongside Lee Westwood and Ian Poulter thanks largely to an eight-under-par third round. The previous best finishes were 24^th by Liang Wenchong in 2008 and 25^th for Zhang Lianwei three years earlier.

“He played very solid golf,” declared Kaymer of the former security guard. 

“He's a long hitter.  His putting is brilliant, so I can see him playing well in the future.  I had never heard of him before, but you've got to watch out, there are more players coming from Asia and he's probably one of the better ones!” he added.

For Kaymer, his victory shone a different light on a year that started with a stunning victory at the Abu Dhabi HSBC Golf Championship in January. The German said the pressure of becoming world number one in February – and not swing changes to prepare for a challenge at Augusta – was responsible for a relative slump, but that completing a sponsor’s double has turned an okay season into a good one.

“I started off with my HSBC win in Abu Dhabi and I’ve finished my year by winning the tournament in Shanghai. I obviously really like the HSBC tournaments!”

With the end of Tiger Woods' reign, golf has truly entered a brave new world!

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Bradley, Poulter, Mahan to Attempt $300K Hole-In-One at WGC-HSBC Champions

During the WGC-HSBC Champions event in Shanghai this week, Keegan Bradley, Ian Poulter, and Hunter Mahan will be given the opportunity to ace the 17^th golf hole at Sheshan Int'l golf course. If they succeed, performance tech innovator Power Balance will donate $300K to a charity of their choice and one lucky fan will be awarded $30K! 

All three golfers have been at the top of their game recently. Ian Poulter took home the trophy at the Volvo World Match Play Championship in Spain in May, Hunter Mahan finished second at the Fedex Cup in September and Keegan Bradley won the PGA Championship in August more recently capturing the PGA Grand Slam of Golf on October 20.

 

“This is a fun, interactive way to give back to our golfing communities,” said Josh Rodarmel, co-founder of Power Balance. “Golfers have consistently given us great feedback about our products and continue to comprise an important segment of our business.”

If you believe that a hole-in-one will be an easy ace, even for great golfers like Mahan, Bradley and Poulter, think again. According to HSBCGolf.com, "Two holes, 16 and 17, play around and over the (rock) quarry, giving the golfer both an awe inspiring view while requiring great golf shots. These two holes will not only be the signature holes of Shanghai Sheshan Golf Club, but also of the whole
Shanghai region."

 

17th hole at Sheshan Golf Club

 

**********

 

Power Balance technology products are worn by a community of millions of everyday people and hundreds of professional athletes – from Drew Brees to Derrick Rose, Matt Kemp to all three golfers participating in this challenge.

 

The online sweepstakes began last week with promotional giveaways and more on the Power Balance website, Facebook and Twitter. 

 

Fans can enter the sweepstakes at http://www.powerbalance.com/holeinonechallenge. The winner will be chosen from online entries into the sweepstakes; no purchase is required to enter the contest. Florida and New York are not eligible for this sweepstakes. 

 

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Baby Comes First As Luke Donald Ducks WGC-HSBC Shanghai Sortie

World number one golfer Luke Donald has reluctantly cancelled his trip to next week’s WGC-HSBC Champions in Shanghai to be with his wife for the birth of their second child. Tim Maitland reports.

The Englishman, who is trying to become the first player in history to win the money lists on both sides of the Atlantic, had been hoping that the daughter they are expecting would conveniently arrive this week.

 Donald, who had his bags packed and was ready to go, finally conceded on Friday that family had to take precedence over the US$7 million event in China and his quest to get into the record books.

“It’s important for my wife and it’s important for me to make sure that I’m around to support her. It’s no coincidence that the birth of our first daughter inspired me to some really great golf. Family does put a lot of things into perspective; my job is very important but the family out-trumps everything,” said the 33-year-old Englishman in a phone interview from his home in the Chicago suburbs.

Professionally, Donald has every reason to want to be in Shanghai for the WGC-HSBC Champions. With five weeks left on the European Tour schedule he leads the Race to Dubai by over 1.3 million Euros from Rory McIlroy. He also has previous form at the Sheshan International Golf Club. He finished third, albeit by ten and nine shots, behind Italy’s Francesco Molinari and fellow Englishman Lee Westwood whose ‘Duel on the Bund’ head-to-head battle earned comparisons with the legendary ‘Duel in the Sun’ Open Championship in 1977.

“It speaks volumes for the tournament. I got to witness it as the third man in that group. I was a few shots back – I didn’t have my best golf – but it was nice to see the quality of the golf down the stretch from both players; it was a fitting end to a great event,” Donald said, despite admitting to being what the English would call a ‘gooseberry’.

“I actually was feeling a bit ‘third wheel’. To finish third was actually a pretty good accomplishment. I was struggling with my game big time and I was using every bit of energy and strength just to give myself a chance to get into that final group. I didn’t have control of the golf ball. I was a little bit frustrated with my own game but it was still nice to see how it should have been done!” he explained.

“It’s a world-class golf course – a long course – and it’s produced some great winners. That’s the biggest bonus about the tournament: the winners have been world-class players. Francesco last year, how well he played down the stretch fending off Lee Westwood… that’s always a mark of a good tournament when it produces good winners,” he said, referring to a roll of honour that includes Phil Mickelson twice, Sergio Garcia and Asia’s first male Major champion ‘YE’ Yang Yong-Eun.

Donald added that the recent controversy over the last-minute decision to delay mailing out the ballots for the PGA Tour Player of the Year voting had nothing to do with his choice to stay by his wife’s side. Donald won the Children’s Miracle Network Classic at Disneyworld to claim the PGA Tour’s money list, but described holding off posting the voting slips to the players until after Shanghai, because a WGC win for a PGA Tour player might impact the outcome, as ‘sketchy’.

“I have no problem with them including the HSBC Champions, they should! It was just the timing of it. The thing that disappointed me is that the schedule has been the same all year. I feel bad for the Asian golf fans that they didn’t see that. It’s something that should have been known at the beginning of the year, not the day after Disney.  The goalposts moved. It’s like running a marathon for 26 miles, crossing the finish line and then they say ‘actually we’re going to make it 27 miles’. It’s just the timing of it. It’s an important event; to have a WGC outside the US and such a big event in Asia. I’ve supported it the last few years when I’ve been eligible. I would be there if it wasn’t for the baby,” he said, adding that headlines describing him as ‘angered’ or ‘upset’ were wide of the mark.

Editor's note: Mid-November is the due date as stated in Luke Donald's official diary. Baby comes first! Best of luck to the  family.

Is Keegan Bradley flying to China on the wings of Phil Mickelson?

Keegan Bradley, the sensational rookie winner of the PGA Championship, says he can’t wait to take his place at Asia’s only World Golf Championship, the WGC-HSBC Champions, in Shanghai in November. Tim Maitland reports.

The 25-year-old nephew of LPGA legend Pat Bradley had already booked his ticket to China when he sealed his maiden PGA Tour win at the Byron Nelson Championship in May. He guaranteed he’d be one of the stars of the show in Shanghai when he joined the flood of recent first-time Major winners and put his name next to those of Francis Oiumet (1913) and Ben Curtis (2003) as only the third player in the history of golf to win such a prestigious title at his first attempt. Further icing on the cake came last week when he won the four-player (2011) Grand Slam of Golf in Bermuda.

“I’ve watched that tournament on TV for as long as it’s been there. I can remember a lot of the holes. It’s exciting to think I’ve qualified to play in that tournament. I always think of that 18^th hole and the water on the right with the huge red HSBC pyramid floating in the water. That’s what comes to my mind,” Bradley says.

“I remember when Phil slid his wedge right under and then chipped it and made par (in 2009). I remember that. It’s a great tournament. It’s going to be an honour to go there. It’s an exciting thing. For a rookie like me it’s a no-brainer; that’s one of the highlights of the schedule.”

Born and raised in New England, Bradley graduated from St John’s University in New York City and worked his way through the Hooters and Nationwide Tours before earning his PGA Tour card for the 2011 season. His only previous experience of playing in Asia was in 2009 at the Korean Golf Tour’s SK Telecom Open at the Sky 72 Golf Club in Incheon. He finished 14^th place in an event won by Park Sang-Hyun.

“That was fun. I had a buddy who worked over there and he got me a sponsor’s invite and I got to go over: people were so nice and it was really, really fun so I’m really looking forward to getting back over there. My buddy Brendan Steele played over in Europe earlier this year and he loved it. It’s a fun thing to be able to go and play over there and to be in such a great tournament. I think the tournaments over there are first class and it’s part of the game now to play worldwide and to get some exposure over there is an exciting thought. Everybody’s so nice. It seems like golf is a worldwide game so people really can relate and understand what you’re going through. It’s exciting.”

Bradley’s eagerness to get to China can be traced back to a more humble upbringing that the name of his illustrious aunt might suggest. His father Mark was originally a night waterman at the Jackson Hole Golf & Tennis Club in Jackson, Wyoming before returning east to become a golf professional just before Keegan was born.

“Everything for me is a bonus out here. I didn’t grow up with a lot so anything that happens out here is a huge bonus. I try to look at it that way. I got nothing to lose, pretty much. Dad was a club pro and I’d just travel around with him. I’d get up early and go to work with him and hang out at the course all day. Golf was what I always loved and I still love it. I’m lucky to be out here!” Bradley explains.

Bradley’s also lucky that one of the players to take him under his wing this season has been four-time Major champion Phil Mickelson, who is also a two-time winner of the HSBC Champions. The stories he heard from Mickelson and his other friends on tour just made Keegan even keener to go to China.

“Everyone’s got nothing but great things to say. I would be honoured to play. Every single person I’ve talked to says it’s a great experience. They just said China’s a really cool place and that the tournament treats you great and cater to whatever the player needs, which is really, really cool. I’ve played on a lot of mini Tours and they do just about the opposite of that. When you get out here and get to be treated like this is a pleasure,” Bradley says.

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WGC-HSBC Champions Golf: Try to win and you won't?

The last global tournament of the stroke play season will see an unprecedented number of newcomers rewarded for their wins with a place at the WGC-HSBC Champions. There’s also a good chance that, for the first time in golf history, the season will end with all the Major titles and WGC trophies in the hands of first-time winners!

Tim Maitland, in Part 2, reports:
WGC-HSBC Champions Preview: The Weird Art of Winning, Part 1

Why should learning to win matter? If you look at golf in an abstract sense, it’s an unusual sport in as much as nothing your opponents do impacts on your own score; so, in theory, the player who hits the ball best, makes the fewest mistakes and putts the ball most efficiently should win.

In reality, winning seems to have very little to do with technique; a suggestion supported by the fact that all the conversations on the subject, no-one talks about the nuts and bolts of their swings. Stop any of the world-class field at the WGC-HSBC Champions and they will, however, discuss at length what goes on in the grey matter between the ears and how the body reacts to that.

“It’s one of those things where you almost black out,” says 25-year-old Keegan Bradley, who as a rookie on the PGA Tour this year won the HP Byron Nelson Championship in Texas and then went on to become only the third player ever to claim a Major at his first attempt, when he beat Jason Dufner in a play-off at the 2011 PGA Championship.

“I don’t remember some of the shots and that’s a huge part of it; you’re just so into it. It’s a pretty intense experience. It’s a feeling that only people in sports can experience; it’s just intense!”

Even players who seem to take to winning the way ducks take to water reveal that at the highest level there is little that can prepare you for the feeling of being in contention.

Eighteen-year-old Italian wunderkind Matteo Manassero, who in 2009 at the age of 16 became the youngest-ever winner of the (British) Amateur Championship and was the youngest-ever winner on the European Tour when he claimed the 2010 Castello Masters Costa Azahar at 17 years and 188 days, struggles to describe the sensations of challenging to win a professional event.

“It’s strange. You can’t really explain it. It’s tense; you’ve got a lot of nerves. You start thinking about good things you’ve done in your life, for example as an amateur, and it might help. Having the experience from the British Amateur really helped. Once I got into contention the first time in Castillon and even when I won it was really, really tense and I didn’t know what to think.  Adrenaline makes you react a little bit differently. I don’t know what the secret is. I’m not sure there is a secret. Sometimes it goes your way and sometimes it doesn’t. There’s not much you can do to force it; there’s not much you can do to make it happen,” explains the teenager from the province of Verona, who qualified for Shanghai when he won the co-sanctioned Maybank Malaysian Open in April.

Equally it seems it’s hard to even know how you’re going to react, as Bradley said after beating Dufner in the three-hole shootout to claim his maiden Major.

“I kept thinking about the playoff that I won at the Byron Nelson, and the same thing happened to me in that; as soon as I realized I was going into a playoff, I completely calmed down. And I got to the tee on 16…it was the most calm I'd been probably all week. I don't know the reason why or what it was, but I was completely calm, and I absolutely striped it down that hole, which was fun. That hole, the playoff and in regulation…that hole, I'll never forget it the rest of my life. It was so exciting!” he declared.

Given how unpredictable the sensations and reactions to being in a winning position are, it shouldn’t come as a surprise that, in the absence of the Tiger Woods of old, the tournament golf landscape is somewhat confusing at the moment.

“I think if you took thirty percent of that kind of experience out of any sport or that kind of top-level know-how from the C-suite of any business or work place anywhere in the world it would have to create some kind of void. It’s experience of success and there’s some truth to the saying that success breeds success,” says HSBC Group Head of Sponsorship, Giles Morgan.

“It’s fascinating trying to work out who will work out how to win next and asking yourself out of those first-time winners, which ones will emerge as a regular champion. It’s been pointed out that the last time there was this kind of unpredictability in golf was when Arnold Palmer and Gary Player emerged as Major champions; there has to be someone out there now who is about to do the same,” he added.

Try to Win and You Won’t

Any hacker or weekend warrior will know recognize the irony of a sport where the more you try the worse it can get; we’ve all started a round badly, played steadily worse, becoming increasingly frustrated until, just when we’re ready to give up, we finally smack one off the middle of the club. Another of the qualifiers for the HSBC Champions coming off a first win on the PGA Tour has done exactly that, except for him, it wasn’t one round… it was his whole career.

“I think there’s something to that. People had been telling me for years ‘You’re trying too hard! You’re just trying too hard! You’re trying too hard!’ I always thought, how can you try too hard? It doesn’t make any sense,” says Harrison Frazar, who set a PGA Tour record for the longest quest for victory when he claimed the FedEx St. Jude Classic in Memphis in his 355^th start.

The turning point for the now 40-year-old Texan was when, after starting the season by missing the cuts in six of his first eight events, he decided it was time to give up.

Immediately, the results came as he tied for 14^th at the Byron Nelson and then won the next time out.

“In my mind it was over. Everybody was on board; family, friends… everybody knew it. Friends were even trying to talk me out of playing. They saw me at home, the way I was, and they said ‘This is crazy. We like you too much. We can’t see you tear yourself up anymore. It’s time to be done. We know you like golf, we know you love golf, but c’mon!’ It was somebody under the influence… of golf!” Frazar says.

 “I had just given up on trying to force results. It was time. I went to the Nelson with the idea that I’m just going to lay these things out for me so I can walk off the course at the end of the day and pat myself on the back. You just quit trying. You quit trying to micromanage every little thing that’s happening. I just said ‘I’m going to stand up, pick my lines and just hit it and see what happens’.”

The rewards for Frazar almost throwing the towel in have been fairly obvious. Having played in only four Majors over the previous eight years, this season he’s played in three. He’d never even made the rarified limited-field world of the WGC events: The HSBC Champions will be his second of the year.

Naturally, there are few examples as extreme as Frazar’s, but Hunter Mahan will attest to how fickle winning golf tournaments can be. In 2010 he claimed both the PGA Tour’s Waste Management Phoenix Open and his maiden WGC victory at the Bridgestone Invitational. For many, a Major win in 2011 seemed a logical progression.

“I can tell you, playing on the (PGA) Tour I've learned not to have expectations about how you play.  Last year was funny; I didn't really play very consistent but I had two wins.  And this year I've been much more consistent and had a bunch of top 10s, but haven't had any wins, so it's kind of strange,” he said when he returned to the Firestone Country Club to defend his WGC crown.

 “Whenever you watch great players play, they never look like they're trying to win; they're just trying to play the game correctly and hit the right shots at the right time and do all the right things that are going to enable you to win. When you're playing pretty consistent and you're close like I had been the first part of the year, my expectation was to win and get up there and just kind of do it. And this game is too hard to force it. You've got to keep working and keep learning and just kind of let it happen.  You trust everything, you trust your game, it will happen.”

Psychobabble

It’s because of these emotional contradictions that so many golfers reach out to sports psychologists to try and find a framework that allows them to perform to their potential in pressure situations. Thus the game is full of players who talk, in different ways, of staying process oriented rather than results focused. Webb Simpson, a multiple winner on the PGA Tour in 2011, is one example.

“The goal that I set out to accomplish is to be one of the best players in the world, if not the best. But, I don't set result-oriented goals for myself. I just try to get up every day and do the most I can to improve my game. I want to expect that I can play with the guys who are the best players in the world. Fortunately right now things are going well for me, but I know this is a fickle game and I know there's ups and downs and I'm sure I'll have a time where it's not going near as well, and it won't be as easy. But just all I really try to do is keep improving,” the 26-year-old from North Carolina said.

Despite his miraculous season, Keegan Bradley still managed to have a mini-crisis of his own the week before winning the PGA Championship, when he found himself in contention at the WGC-Bridgestone Invitational. His final round 74 left him seeking advice from Dr. Bob Rotella, one of America’s leading sports psychologists, coach Jim McLean, and fellow pros Phil Mickelson and Camilo Villegas. The wisdom he got wasn’t rocket science, but clearly worked.

“They are all a lot of clichés, but it was not getting into the result of winning this trophy or making a birdie or what it would mean to me. It was important to me to win Rookie of the Year, and that's something that was hurting me out there: thinking about it,” Bradley explained after his triumph.

“Phil and Camilo gave me some advice that only players can. Phil just told me to stay more patient out there. The major thing I tried to do (during the PGA Championship) was under-react to everything whether it was a good thing or a terrible thing. That was [what] the key was, to under-react. And if you watch Phil play, he gets excited but he never gets too down on himself, and that was the key.”

Everyone is searching for similar keys, even Stuart Appleby, a nine-time winner on the PGA Tour who makes the field by virtue of his 2010 JB Were Australian Masters victory. He describes how his ears pricked up when he heard a question about winning asked to two of the greats of the game during this year’s Memorial Tournament.

“They had Faldo and Nicklaus in the commentary booth and the commentator asked ‘When things weren’t quite turning out right, what did you do?’ I was ready for this amazing answer and Jack Nicklaus says ’You’ve just got to suck it up. You’ve just got to suck it up.’!” Appleby exclaims.

“Now, what that means to each person is down to your own interpretation, but what he was saying is you just have to slap yourself on the face and get going and get playing!”

Clearly that’s what Rory McIlroy did in between blowing up in the final round of this year’s Masters and turning a similar third-round lead at the US Open into one of the most stunning victories. Equally, at the PGA Championship, Bradley did the same to himself when he triple-bogeyed the 15^th in the final round.

“I didn't want it to define my tournament and I just kept telling myself to just pretend like nothing happened and go out there and hit this fairway. That's what I kept telling myself walking to the tee was just hit this fairway. And it was the best shot I hit all week. I absolutely striped it right down the middle,” Bradley told the media after his historic win.

Had Bradley stayed focused on his mistake that day, done what many of us would do and spent the rest of his round berating himself, his maiden Major win would never have come. It sounds easy to do on paper, but, as Allenby points out, the reality of golf is it’s a sport that loves to help you beat yourself up.

“That’s the tough part of the game, because the game, if you use a boxing analogy, is always trying to work you over, and put you in a corner of the ring and punch you…  

“And punch you hard!

“And it’s a bigger opponent than you!

“What you spend your whole career doing is trying to keep out of the corner, keep light on your feet, keep energetic, keep enthusiastic and not get down… but it’s so easy to get manhandled into the corner. I think the great champions never got into the corner for very long,” the 40-year-old Aussie concludes.

A Matter of Experience 

So as the world’s top golfers gear up for the WGC-HSBC Champions – the last global gathering of the great and good in 2011 — with few of the proven winners seeming to be in winning form, how have the first-time winners got ahead of the pack? It’s interesting that many of them have some sort of life or golf experience that lessened the enormity of the task they succeeded at.

None of those stories is more heart-breaking than that of the Open Champion Darren Clarke.  The Northern Irishman was a regular winner and a contender in the Majors until his wife Heather was diagnosed with breast cancer for the first time in 2001. She was diagnosed with a recurrence in 2004 and succumbed to her illness in 2006. Six weeks after her death, her husband resumed his golf career at the Ryder Cup. He readily admitted that having gone through that experience, winning the Open at Royal St. George this year wasn’t nearly as difficult as it might have been.

“It's not possible to compare, but I think the emotions and everything that I went through walking towards that first tee at The K Club in 2006, getting onto the first tee and making contact with the golf ball and managing to look up and see that it was thankfully going down the middle of the fairway, I will never forget anything more difficult on the golf course than I did that morning, and to this day, I still haven't faced anything as difficult as that. That in itself made Royal St. Georges an awful lot easier for me because I will never face anything as tough as what that was,” the 43-year-old said after lifting the claret jug.

Clarke also mentions the weather on the Saturday of the tournament. In the fiendishly difficult conditions that earn seaside links golf its reputation, it was so wet and windy that Tom Watson’s two-over-par round actually moved him up the leader board. Clarke was one-under for the day and the outright leader.

“I think confidence is everything in victory. You need to have the self belief that you can hit the shot when you need to hit the shot or make the four‑footer when you need to make the four‑footer.  You need to have that confidence, and I think I gained an awful lot of confidence from the way that I played on the Saturday.  That stood me in great stead for Sunday because to me Saturday was a tougher day than what Sunday was, and I had bit the ball as good as I could, so it carried on into Sunday,” he explained.

Keegan Bradley has a similar tale to tell of his maiden PGA Tour victory at the Byron Nelson in Irving, Texas, where the winds were so strong the final round was described as “a survival test”.   

“It was really brutal weather so I think I was focusing on not making double (bogey) on every hole. That helped a lot. I also had a great caddie in “Pepsi” – Steve Hale – that helped me. Caddies are such a big part of winning – people don’t realise. He’d won before and he helped me stay calm.”

Making triple bogey going into the closing stretch at the PGA Championship also forced Bradley to focus, this time on chasing down Jason Dufner: “For me it was easier because I knew I had to make some birdies,” he said.

Among the first-time WGC winners lining up for the HSBC Champions there are similar kinds of stories. Australia’s Adam Scott got the biggest win of his career at the WGC-Bridgestone Invitational with Tiger’s longtime caddie Steve Williams on his bag and admitted his presence contributed to him playing “like a bulldog” to win: “It's almost like I need to show him I've got it in me, because a lot of people question it,” he said afterwards.

Then there’s the defending champion Francesco Molinari who resisted consistent pressure from newly-crowned world number one Lee Westwood to win the “Duel on the Bund” at last year’s WGC-HSBC Champions. Would he have been so steadfast without having gone through the madness in the mud at the Celtic Manor Ryder Cup just five weeks before?

“There’s so much pressure that week; you can’t do anything to take pressure off yourself. You just have to live with it and play with it. After a while you get used to playing with all the tension. It’s just a great feeling for a sportsman to be playing in an environment like that. 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. It should be less pressure, but when you see all the people supporting you and you see all your teammates trying hard it is a lot of pressure on your shoulders,” Molinari says of his Ryder Cup experience.

Different Strokes for Different Folks

For each player, however, the details of the combination that proves to be the key that unlocks those wins is subtly, sometimes infuriatingly, different.

“It’s difficult to do because so many people start to think of the people behind them trying to catch them and so many people try to save their score. It’s very difficult because we should be able to play the same golf on the 1^st hole of a tournament as we do on the 72^nd,” says 28-year-old Spaniard Alvaro Quiros, who has won once in every European Tour season since 2007, including some of the highest ranking events on the Tour, such as this year’s Dubai Desert Classic. 

“I have to learn, but in a different way. I should try to give myself more chances. I’m too ambitious. Too hard to myself sometimes and this, probably, makes me miss more shots than I should. Everybody has to go through a process. I’ve been improving. I used to be even more aggressive. I used to be even more impassioned. Little by little golf puts you in your proper place. If you’re able to improve with the shots God gives you I think you can improve a lot and this is what is happening to you.”

And what has Quiros learned in attempting to win more often and win bigger?

“Try to keep myself in the present. Try to keep doing the same that I was doing. Don’t try to accelerate the end of the competition,” he says.

As Harrison Frazar can vouch, finding the specific answer can take a long time… in his case almost a whole lifetime in golf.

“I did think ’Thankfully I’ve figured it now. At least now I’ve figured it out!’ So I’m 40 years old, but who cares? At least I can go and do it now. I could have retired and never figured it out, so I’m thankful for that,” he laughs.

When the cards finally fall on the table, when the penny finally drops, you’d be forgiven for thinking that winning again would come more naturally. Webb Simpson certainly thought so after claiming his maiden victory at this August’s Wyndham Championship in Greensboro, North Carolina, but he quickly discovered that wasn’t the case when he followed up with a victory at the September’s Deutsche Bank Championship; the second event of the FedEx Cup play-offs.

"I told somebody that I feel like next time I was in contention it'll be a lot easier than Greensboro, and it wasn't that way at all. It was just as hard. The shots and the putts were just as hard. I think it helped just calm me down a little, but it was like I had never won a golf tournament before.  I thought winning the second time would be easier," Simpson declared after his second win.

Simpson could have gained that wisdom by asking someone eight years his junior. Like Rory McIlroy, Matteo Manassero is one of the more precocious winners in professional golf, yet he doesn’t even hesitate when asked if it gets any simpler.

“No! Once you’ve won ten times maybe it becomes easier, but when you’ve one once or twice you feel the pressure for your third or fourth!” 

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WGC-HSBC Champions Preview: The Weird Art of Winning, Part 1

The last global tournament of the stroke play season will see an unprecedented number of newcomers rewarded for their wins with a place at the WGC-HSBC Champions. There’s also a good chance that, for the first time in golf history, the season will end with all the Major titles and WGC trophies in the hands of first-time winners. Tim Maitland reports.

As the world’s best golfers descend on Shanghai for the WGC-HSBC Champions, the world of golf has never been so wide open.

photo credit: GolfCentralDaily.com

 

At the moment all of the big trophies have pride of place in their winner’s display cabinets, because none have won at such lofty levels before. The PGA Championship and US Open Championship belong to relative youngsters in 25-year-old Keegan Bradley and 22-year-old Rory McIlroy. The Masters belongs to Charl Schwartzel, 27, making first-time Open Champion Darren Clarke look like a grizzled veteran at 43. 

This year’s WGCs belong to a group of thirty-somethings – England’s world number one Luke Donald (WGC-Accenture Match Play Championship), American Nick Watney (WGC-Cadillac Championship) and Australia’s Adam Scott (WGC-Bridgestone Invitational) – while 28-year-old Italian Francesco Molinari returns to Shanghai to defend the WGC-HSBC Champions.

Thirteen different players have won the last thirteen Majors and only three of them (Mickelson, Cabrera and Harrington) have won Majors before. The last nine World Golf Championships events have also been won by nine different winners; a spell unprecedented since the stable of elite tournaments was introduced in 1999.

There have been six different winners of the last six European Tour Orders of Merit (more recently the Race to Dubai). Compare that to the period between 2005 and 1993 when Colin Montgomerie (eight times), Ernie Els (twice), Retief Goosen (twice), and Lee Westwood (once) shared thirteen titles.

It’s the same on the PGA Tour, where democracy reigns after the duopoly of Tiger Woods and Vijay Singh who were the only players to lead the PGA Tour money list at season’s end or record the most wins between 2009 and 1999. The PGA Player of the Year award and the Jack Nicklaus Trophy (The PGA Tour Player of the Year), with the exception of Padraig Harrington claiming both in 2008, also belonged to Woods or Singh.

This season there have been twelve first-time winners during PGA Tour regular season and an almost unprecedented parade of rookie winners. Compared to the stability of previous years, even the FedEx Cup and Tour Championship winner Bill Haas – a two-time PGA Tour winner in 2010 – could be described as coming from relative obscurity.

The reason would seem to be obvious: the decline of Tiger Woods. Arguably the greatest golfer ever (although some will deny him that claim unless he rebounds and overtakes Jack Nicklaus’s record of eighteen Major triumphs), Woods was so dominant that through to the end of 2009 he’d won almost thirty per cent of his starts on the PGA Tour.

If you combine his two hottest periods, from 1999 to 2002 and from 2005 to 2008, he claimed thirteen of the twenty-seven Majors he played.  Up until the end of 2009, he triumphed in sixteen of the twenty-nine WGC events in which he competed.

What we’re seeing now, with Tiger so far down the rankings and so far removed from his last big victory that he hasn’t qualified to play in China, is not just young talent, but several generations of golfers figuring out how to win.

 

Part two in Tim Maitland's article coming soon: Why should learning to win matter?

 

 

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With end of Tiger Woods reign, has golf entered a brave new world?

Heading to the WGC-HSBC Champions for the last big showdown of the stroke play season, all of this season’s Majors and World Golf Championships titles are in the hands of first-time winners at that level. That’s never happened before. Tim Maitland investigates whether it means the sport has truly entered a new era.

Something is happening in the golf world: ten of the last eleven Major winners have been first time winners.  Six of the last seven WGC-HSBC winners have also been new to winning at the highest stratosphere of the world game.

photo: European Tour and news.maars.net

Since the WGC’s were introduced in 1999, the titles have never all been simultaneously in the hands of newcomers to that echelon of winning. Since the end of World War II only three other years have ended with the Majors claimed by first-time winners: in 2003 (Mike Weir, Jim Furyk, Ben Curtis, Shaun Micheel), 1969 (George Archer, Orville Moody, Tony Jacklin, Raymond Floyd) and 1959 (Art Wall, Billy Casper, Gary Player, Bob Rosburg). Clearly, something is going on.

For all the fuss made of Tiger Woods' failure to qualify for Shanghai, it might be more significant that the tipping point for these statistics hasn’t been his achievements.

It’s not Tiger’s last Major – the 2008 US Open – but Angel Cabrera’s 2009 Masters that, statistically at least, seems to herald the end of one era and the start of another. It’s not Woods' last WGC – the 2009 Bridgestone Invitational – but Phil Mickelson’s win a few months later at the HSBC Champions that heralds a shift towards a new type of winner.

Has golf entered a brave new world? Is it not just Tiger, but a generation of his rivals that are being ushered out? Is this just a brief lull in the Tiger era? The answer probably depends on your point of view.

Not Since The ‘50s

The only comparable time to this era – where only Phil Mickelson (2010 Masters) and Ernie Els (2010 WGC-CA Championship) have struck blows for the established names – is the period from 1957 to 1959. Back then, in a run of nine Majors, apart from Peter Thomson of Australia winning the fourth of his five Open Championships, the rest of the champions were newcomers to the upper echelon of tournament winning. 

In fifty years time some of our recently crowned champions may have drifted into the relative obscurity of Lionel Herbert, the ethnic Cajun, who won the last match play PGA Championship in 1957, or “Terrible” Tommy Bolt, who may have added fourteen other PGA Tour wins to his 1958 US Open title, but only remains a household name in the most golf-obsessed of families.

In fifty years time, it’s fair to assume, some of our recently crowned champions will be remembered in the same way we remember a couple of those first-time Major winners from back then. Like 1958 Masters winner Arnold Palmer or 1959 Open Champion Gary Player, it’s quite possible that a Martin Kaymer, a Rory McIlory or maybe a Keegan Bradley will be legends too!

Perhaps those times were just as confusing for golf fans who were yet to fully comprehend that Sam Snead (’54 Masters) and Ben Hogan (’53 Open) had won their last Majors nor realized what the precocious then-amateur called Nicklaus was going to do to their game.

Europe’s Golden Age

What is clear right now is that Europe, and the European Tour in particular, is dominant… or at least enjoying a period of unrivalled parity with the US. In the last two years three Northern Irishmen (Graeme McDowell, 2010 US Open; Rory McIlroy, 2011 US Open and Clarke) have claimed their first Majors along with Germany’s Martin Kaymer (2010 PGA Championship). Tour members Louis Oosthuizen (2010 Open) and Charl Schwartzel (2011 Masters) have done likewise for South Africa.

England’s Luke Donald, Kaymer (8 weeks) and Lee Westwood (22 weeks) have each held the number one spot in the Official World Golf Ranking since Woods relinquished top spot in Shanghai last November. Donald, fellow Englishman Ian Poulter (respectively, the 2011 and 2010 WGC-Accenture Match Play Championship winners) and HSBC Champions titleholder Francesco Molinari have all claimed their first WGC titles.

The facts are easier to relay than the reasons: although Westwood argues that the debate doesn’t have to be complex.

“We’re just very good at the moment. There’s no other reason than that. You don’t need another reason other than that. I just think European golf is really strong at the moment. We’ve got a lot of good players, so if you play well you’re going to win. A lot of the players at the moment have been around a while, but also a lot of the good young players have just come through and are getting comfortable too,” says Westwood.

“It’s not something I really think about too much; I’m getting bored talking about it to be honest.”

Not everyone finds the discussion so tedious. Alvaro Quiros, the flamboyant 28-year-old Spaniard, whose Dubai Desert Classic triumph in February guaranteed his place in the field for Shanghai, is far more excited about the situation.

“I think it’s an amazing time, because at the same time we’re playing great golf courses and great events with the best players of both of the main tours. Now is coming out the truth of the golf of both sides; obviously European golf is in a great moment and maybe the only time where European and American golf has been at the same level. We are in different stages, right now. It’s like soccer in Spain. Barcelona is the best team in the world right now… by far, but five years ago it was Real Madrid by far too,” Quiros points out.

Sharing the American Pie

However the shift is not just in Europe. During the PGA Tour’s regular season there were 12 first time winners ranging from 40-year-old Harrison Frazar who popped the champagne after 354 futile attempts having all-but decided to retire – “I hate to say it, but I had pretty much given up!” – through to five rookies, something that has only happened one other time since 1970.

“If you look at this year it’s been the strangest year from rookies winning to veterans winning. It’s amazing. It just goes to show the diversity of golf; all different ages are winning right now, which is crazy!” exclaims 23-year-old Australian Jason Day, whose Filipino roots would have added a whole new level of diversity to the winning equation had he converted either of his second place finishes at this year’s Masters and US Opens into a maiden Major win, but has still emerged this year as the second youngest player frequenting the world’s top 10 after Rory McIlroy.

“I think this is a tremendously exciting time, but not especially because of the shift in power from the USA to Europe,” declares Giles Morgan, HSBC Group Head of Sponsorship.

“There are some far more significant longer term shifts. Firstly, the sport is appealing to a younger generation in a different way. Whether you look at the media profile of Rory McIlroy, the impact Martin Kaymer’s success has had in generating a new generation of golf fans in Germany or the way that Rickie Fowler’s image is resonating with teenagers… they’re all touching a new demographic. We’ve got boys competing on the HSBC National Junior Championship in China who are cultivating his look: to them Fowler is making golf seem cool! All over the world that’s going to keep a lot of boys in the game instead of looking for other places where they can express themselves,” he adds.

“The other thing that excites me is how the game is growing geographically. Look at the season the Italians had last year, culminating with Francesco Molinari winning in Shanghai! Look at the impact that Jhonattan Vegas becoming the first Venezuelan to win on the PGA Tour had! Look at France being awarded the chance to host its first Ryder Cup and what that will do for the game there! Golf is pushing into new frontiers. We’re certainly seeing it at our tournaments in Rio, Abu Dhabi, Singapore and Shanghai… and it’s only going to accelerate the closer we get to golf’s return to the Olympics in 2016.”

Tiger Woods' 30 Per Cent

The steady internationalization, however, doesn’t help make sense of the PGA Tour 2011 winners, which appear to be a swirling void. Perhaps it’s best to regard it as exactly that. Tiger’s dominance, almost unprecedented, ended relative suddenly by injuries and his off-course issues has created a void and the swirling vortex of winners has yet to settle into a recognizable pattern.

“Tiger was special. When he was winning so much he had something that changed the opponents mind and everything was going his way. But now everything is not going his way. There are periods in professional golf that are really tough to understand,” says another of the bright young things, eighteen-year-old Italian Matteo Manassero, who has been lurking around the top thirty in the world since winning the co-sanctioned Maybank Malaysian Open earlier this year.

One of the most compelling explanations for why the golf map seems so confused at the moment is the ratio of Tigers' wins to appearances at his peak. In the Majors, from the 1999 PGA Championship to the end of 2002 he won seven of the thirteen tournaments. From 2005 until the famous 2008 US Open that he won on a broken leg he claimed six of fourteen.

In total, from the start of his rookie season in 1996 through the end of 2009, Tiger Woods played in 239 PGA Tour events and won 71 times. That's a winning percentage of nearly 30 per cent… even before you start to refine the numbers for the periods when he was at his red-hot, red-shirted, fist-pumping best.

Relatively few of the current top professionals will give much credence to the argument that the decline of US golf, at least when it comes to winning the top tournaments, may be the result of Tiger simply denying so many other players the opportunity to work out how to win. Statistically it seems significant.

“One in three years! One in three seasons was stripped away!” exclaims Australian veteran Stuart Appleby, a nine-time winner on the PGA Tour, who booked his ticket to this year’s WGC-HSBC Champions by winning the JB Were Australian Masters at the end of last year.

“Then also, you wonder about the subliminal message of how do I beat this guy? When Tiger’s was on his best? I don’t think people are thinking like that. They’re probably a bit more back into their own thing. You can imagine what it was like when Byron Nelson had his run many years ago when he just went win, win, win, win! For the ladies tour, they’ve been experiencing that kind of thing with Yani. What have you got to do? It can be deflating. What are you going to do?”

Learning to Win

The psychological impact of one player’s domination might not be the biggest factor though. The simple reasoning is this; while Tiger taking 30% of winning experience out of the pool isn’t a topic that the pros tackle with any enthusiasm, to a man they seem to agree that winning at the highest level has to be learned.

“I think so. I think it’s a process that a lot of people have to go through. There’s very few that come out and just go win. Learning how to win is a process and most guys don’t come out and win golf tournaments: there’s been very few to do it. There’s definitely a learning curve on learning how to win,” insists Rickie Fowler, who at twenty-two, is in a similar situation to Jason Day in trying to put the final piece into the jigsaw and turn prodigious talent into victories.

“Being in contention: you don’t get those nerves and feelings just from a normal day of playing in a tournament. It is a new feeling and you have to get comfortable with it and learn how to deal with it.”

Another American PGA Tour Rookie Keegan Bradley, who this year, as well as winning the Byron Nelson, became only the third man in the entire history of the sport to win a Major at his first attempt when he claimed the 2011 PGA Championship, says while his wins as an Amateur and on the mini-tours helped they don’t begin to get you ready to win at the highest level. The 25-year-old New Englander agrees that you have to experience getting to the point where you can barely hold a club before you can work out how to overcome it.

“Definitely! The most nervous I’ve ever been was the second stage of PGA Tour Q-School. I was so nervous coming towards the end. I was way more nervous then, than when I was contending to win at the (Byron) Nelson. It’s one of those things where you almost black out. I don’t remember some of the shots and that’s a huge part of it; you’re just so into it. I was in a play-off (at the Byron Nelson) and I don’t remember my second shot in the play-off. It’s a pretty intense experience. It’s a feeling that only people in sports can experience; it’s just intense!” Bradley says.

“It’s everywhere. It’s physically and mentally, especially mentally. You’re fighting off so many thoughts like getting to play Augusta, the Bridgestone, China things like that. There’s a lot going on in your head that you’re going to have to block out,” Bradley adds.

“It’s tough! It’s tough! You’ve never been there. You’ve been working to be there but you feel different kind of things inside you,” agrees 28-year-old Spaniard Pablo Larrazabal, who bounced back into form this year to beat Sergio Garcia in a play-off at the BMW International Open.

Larrazabal burst onto the European Tour having won his card for the 2008 season. He’d win his 16^th tournament that year, but in only his third event, the Joburg Open, he started the final round two shots off the lead and discovered just how surreal an experience being in contention can be:

“I played very badly. I struggled a lot. You can’t describe the feelings. You need to feel them. It’s something special that you can’t explain with words. You need to feel it and conquer it.”

Golf’s New Democracy

The reality is that, in the void left by Tiger Woods, all kinds of golfers have been given the opportunity to work out how to win. Whether it’s rookie Keegan Bradley who, in less than two seasons, jumped from winning on the Hooters Tour to becoming a first-up Major champion or Harrison Frazar who in his 17^th season as a pro finally figured out what all those people who told him he was trying to hard actually meant.

There’s Rory McIlroy, who has perhaps indicated that he has the mental strength to be the player that emerges from this confused period the way that the other Player and Palmer emerged from the late 1950s; given the way he bounced back in such a short space of time from blowing up in the final round of the Masters to win the US Open in such masterful fashion.

Then there are also some very talented young players who are just a step away.

“I’ve got to learn to win. Once I do that I can hopefully move on. I’m in the top 10 in the world right now and I’d like to win on a regular basis; that would be nice,” says Jason Day.

“It’s not technique; it’s just time and experience. I’ve come close a couple of times to winning Majors this year. It is a different experience. It’s just time and experience, getting myself into contention and being there, over time I’ll learn how to do it and once I do it hopefully I learn how to do it more on a regular basis. So far, it’s probably been a bit of inexperience; making wrong decisions at the wrong time. A bit of mental toughness would be in the little mixture of that. It’s just a bit of experience I need to have.”

Young Americans

The Americans will bounce back once they’ve accumulated some of the knowledge of winning that Tiger’s 30 per cent seems to have denied them. Dustin Johnson, at 27, has started winning the bigger PGA Tour events and has been right in contention in the 2010 US Open, the 2010 PGA Championship and the 2011 Open Championship. A Major can’t be far away.

Then there’s Rickie Fowler whose tie for fifth at the Open and runner-up finish in the WGC-Bridgestone Invitational added further fuel to the fire of those who argue that a substantial triumph is on the cards for the 22 year old.

“I like my chances. I need to work on the first win. It's more something I feel like has to fall into place, you know, not something where I can go out and try and force the issue. I can't go out there and push myself to win. It's something where I just focus on playing well, something I've been doing lately, and if it's my time to win, it's my time,” says Fowler, who believes he won’t be the only young American to emerge.

“There’s a really good young group of players in the US, guys who are playing right now and some guys that are about to turn pro in the next couple of year, so the young generation of golf in the US is strong. If a few guys get some wins under their belts we’re going to have some good players. Dustin Johnson is one of my favourite players to watch play as a young American. Nick Watney has a few wins under his belt, Bill Haas, and then younger guys. There are some good young players coming out. I was telling people in the last couple of years that there are a couple of guys in college that are going to make some noise real soon; there’s been a couple to win some Nationwide events and a couple of others who are playing well. Peter Uihlein, Morgan Hoffmann, Kevin Tway… Russell Henley’s won a Nationwide event; Harris English won a Nationwide event: both were amateurs.”

Lee Westwood himself has no doubt that American golfers will soon be back to winning their share of Majors.

“European golf is very strong at the moment and we’ve played well in the right events. The Americans are playing well as well, they played well at the Open; it’s just a matter of time before it goes full circle,” he says.

All that is left to wonder is just how much more global the game will have become by the time that circle is completed, which of the first-time top-level champions might emerge from this period in the way that Player and Palmer did in the late 1950s… and the fact that the twelve first-time victors among the PGA Tour’s thirty-seven regular season events represent Tiger’s number: thirty per cent of the wins.

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Major winners since 2009 (1^st time winners in bold)

2011

PGA Championship: Keegan Bradley (USA)

Open Championship: Darren Clarke (NIR)

US Open Championship: Rory McIlroy (NIR)

Masters Tournament: Charl Schwartzel (RSA)

2010

PGA Championship: Martin Kaymer (GER)

Open Championship: Louis Oosthuizen (RSA)

US Open Championship: Graeme McDowell (NIR)

Masters Tournament: Phil Mickelson (USA)

2009

PGA Championship: “YE” Yang Yong-Eun (KOR)

Open Championship: Stewart Cink (USA)

US Open Championship: Lucas Glover (USA)

Masters Tournament: Angel Cabrera (ARG)

World Golf Championships winners since 2009 (1^st time winners in bold)

2011

WGC-HSBC Champions:

WGC-Bridgestone Invitational: Adam Scott (AUS)

WGC-Cadillac Championship: Nick Watney (USA)

WGC-Accenture Match Play Championship: Luke Donald (ENG)

2010

WGC-HSBC Champions: Francesco Molinari (ITA)

WGC-Bridgestone Invitational: Hunter Mahan (USA)

WGC-CA Championship: Ernie Else (RSA)

WGC-Accenture Match Play Championship: Ian Poulter (ENG)

2009

WGC-HSBC Champions: Phil Mickelson (USA)

WGC-Bridgestone Invitational: Tiger Woods (USA)

WGC-CA Championship: Phil Mickelson (USA)

WGC-Accenture Match Play Championship: Geoff Ogilvy (AUS)

2011 PGA Tour – 1^st time winners

Webb Simpson (USA) Wyndham Championship, North Carolina

Aged 26 ranked 55 in the world at the time of his win.

Scott Stallings (USA) Greenbrier Classic, West Virginia

ROOKIE Aged 26 ranked 224 in the world at the time of his win.

Chris Kirk (USA) Viking Classic, Mississippi

ROOKIE Aged 26 ranked 106 in the world at the time of his win.

Fredrik Jacobson (SWE) Travelers Championship, Connecticut

Aged 36 ranked 110 in the world at the time of his win.

1st win in his 188th PGA Tour tournament

Harrison Frazar (USA) FedEx St. Jude Classic, Memphis, Tennessee

Aged 39 ranked 583 in the world at the time of his win.

1st win in his 355th PGA Tour tournament

Keegan Bradley (USA) HP Byron Nelson Championship, Texas

ROOKIE Aged 24 Ranked 203 in the world at the time of his win.

Brendan Steele (USA) Valero Texas Open, Texas

ROOKIE Aged 28 ranked 231 in the world at the time of his win.

Charl Schwartzel (RSA) Masters Tournament, Georgia

ROOKIE Aged 26 and ranked 29 in the world at the time of his win.

Gary Woodland (USA) Transitions Championship, Florida

Aged 26 ranked 153^rd in the world at the time of his win.

D.A. Points (USA) AT&T Pebble Beach National Pro-Am, California

Aged 34 and ranked 167^th in the world at the time of his win.

Jhonattan Vegas (VEN) Bob Hope Classic, California

ROOKIE Aged 26 and ranked 187^th in the world at the time of his win.

World Golf Championships: All-time Winners

16 – Tiger Woods (USA)*

3 – Geoff Ogilvy (AUS)

2 – Phil Mickelson (USA)

2 – Ernie Els (USA)**

2 – Darren Clarke (NIR)

1 – Adam Scott (AUS)

1 – Nick Watney (USA)

1 – Luke Donald (ENG)

1 – Francesco Molinari (ITA)

1 – Hunter Mahan (USA)

1 – Ian Poulter (ENG)

1 – Henrik Stenson (SWE)

1 – David Toms (USA)

1 – Kevin Sutherland (USA)

1 – Steve Stricker (USA)

1 – Jeff Maggert (USA)

1 – Mike Weir (CAN)

1 – Vijay Singh (FIJ)

1 – Stewart Cink (USA)

1 – Craig Parry (AUS)

*plus 2000 World Cup

**plus 2001 World Cup

HSBC Champions

Format: 72-holes, stroke play, no cut
Field: Approximately 78 players, consisting of tournament winners from around the world and the best players from the International Federation of PGA Tours, as dictated by each Tour’s money list, order of merit, etc.

2010 – Francesco Molinari (ITA) 269 (-19) (Sheshan International GC, Shanghai, China)

2009 – Phil Mickelson (USA) 271 (-17) (Sheshan International GC, Shanghai, China)

2008* – Sergio Garcia (ESP) 274 (-14) won on second hole of play-off with Oliver Wilson

2007* – Phil Mickelson (USA) 278 (-10) won on second hole of play-off with Lee Westwood and Ross Fisher

2006* – YE Yang Yong-Eun (KOR) 274 (-14)

2005* – David Howell (ENG) 268 (-20)

* = Before granted WGC status

Bridgestone Invitational*

Format: 72-holes, stroke play, no cut
Field: Members of the most recent United States and International Presidents Cup teams and the United States and European Ryder Cup teams. Players ranked among the top 50 on the Official World Golf Ranking. The past year’s Major winners.

2011 – Adam Scott (AUS) 263 (-17) (Firestone CC, Ohio, USA)

2010 – Hunter Mahan (USA) 268 (-12) (Firestone CC, Ohio, USA)

2009 – Tiger Woods (USA) 268 (-12) (Firestone CC, Ohio, USA)

2008 – Vijay Singh (FIJ) 270 (-10) (Firestone CC, Ohio, USA)

2007 – Tiger Woods (USA) 272 (-8) (Firestone CC, Ohio, USA)

2006 – Tiger Woods (USA) 270 (-10) (Firestone CC, Ohio, USA)

2005 – Tiger Woods (USA) 274 (-6) (Firestone CC, Ohio, USA)

2004 – Stewart Cink (USA) 269 (-11) (Firestone CC, Ohio, USA)

2003 – Darren Clarke (NIR) 268 (-12) (Firestone CC, Ohio, USA)

2002 – Craig Parry (AUS) 268 (-16) (Sahalee CC, Washington, USA)

2001 – Tiger Woods (USA) 269 (-12) (Firestone CC, Ohio, USA)

2000 – Tiger Woods (USA) 259 (-21) (Firestone CC, Ohio, USA)

1999 – Tiger Woods (USA) 270 (-10) (Firestone CC, Ohio, USA)

*From 1999- 2005 known as NEC Invitational

Cadillac Championship*

Format: 72 holes, stroke play, no cut
Field: 65-70, including 44 of the top 50 from the Official World Golf Rankings and leaders of the six Tours' Official Money Lists/Order of Merit.

2011 – Nick Watney (RSA) 272 (-16) (Doral, Florida, USA)

2010 – Ernie Els (RSA) 270 (-18) (Doral, Florida, USA)

2009 – Phil Mickelson (USA) 269 (-19) (Doral, Florida, USA)

2008 – Geoff Ogilvy (AUS) 271 (-17) (Doral, Florida, USA)

2007 – Tiger Woods (USA) 278 (-10) (Doral, Florida, USA)

2006 – Tiger Woods (USA) 270 (-23) (The Grove, Hertfordshire, England)
2005 – Tiger Woods (USA) 270 (-10) (play-off) (Harding Park, San Francisco, California, USA)

2004 – Ernie Els (RSA) 270 (-18) (Mount Juliet Conrad, Co. Kilkenny, Ireland)

2003 – Tiger Woods (USA) 274 (-6) (Capital City Club, Atlanta, Georgia, USA)

2002 – Tiger Woods (USA) 263 (-25) (Mount Juliet Conrad, Co. Kilkenny, Ireland)

2001 – Cancelled (Bellerive, St. Louis, Missouri, USA)

2000 – Mike Weir (CAN) 277 (-11) (Valderrama, Spain)

1999 - Tiger Woods (USA) 278 (-10) (play-off) (Valderrama, Spain)

*From 2007-2010 known as CA Championship

From 1999-2006 known as American Express Championship

Accenture Match Play Championship

Format: Match Play

Field: Top 64 available players (Based on the Official World Golf Ranking)

2011 – Luke Donald (ENG) 3&1 vs. Martin Kaymer (Dove Mountain, Arizona, USA)

2010 – Ian Poulter (ENG) 4&2 vs. Paul Casey (Dove Mountain, Arizona, USA)  

2009 – Geoff Ogilvy (AUS) 4&3 vs. Paul Casey (Ritz-Carlton GC, Arizona, USA)

2008 – Tiger Woods (USA) 8&7 vs. Stewart Cink.  (Ritz-Carlton GC, Arizona, USA)

2007 – Henrik Stenson (SWE) 2&1 vs. Geoff Ogilvy (Gallery, Arizona, USA)

2006 – Geoff Ogilvy (AUS) 3&2 vs. Davis Love III (La Costa, California, USA) 

2005 – David Toms (USA) 6&5 vs. Chris DiMarco (La Costa, California, USA) 
2004 – Tiger Woods (USA) 3&2 vs. Davis Love III (La Costa, California, USA) 
2003 – Tiger Woods (USA) 2&1 vs.  David Toms (La Costa, California, USA) 
2002 – Kevin Sutherland (USA) 1 up vs. Scott McCarron 1 up (La Costa, California, USA) 
2001 – Steve Stricker (USA) 2&1 vs. Pierre Fulke (Metropolitan GC, Victoria, Australia)
2000 – Darren Clarke (NIR) 4&3 vs. Tiger Woods (La Costa, California, USA) 
1999 – Jeff Maggert (USA) 38 holes vs. Andrew Magee (La Costa, California, USA) 

Note: From 2000 to 2006 the World Cup was a WGC event. Winners as follows:

2006 - Germany (Bernhard Langer/Marcel Siem) 268 (play-off) (Sandy Lane, Barbados)

2005 – Wales (Bradley Dredge/Stephen Dodd) 189 (Victoria Clube, Algarve, Portugal)

2004 – England (Paul Casey/Luke Donald) 257 (Real Club, Seville, Spain)

2003 – South Africa (Rory Sabbatini/Trevor Immelman) 275 (Kiawah Island, South Carolina, USA)

2002 – Japan (Shigeki Maruyama/Toshimitsu Izawa) 252 (Vista Vallarta, Puerto Vallarta, Mexico)

2001 – South Africa (Ernie Els/Retief Goosen) 264 (play-off) (Taiheiyo Club, Shizuoka, Japan)

2000 – United States (Tiger Woods/David Duval) 254 (Buenos Aires GC, Argentina)

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