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.

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Whisper it! Kaymer reveals HSBC Abu Dhabi golf secret

Germany’s Martin Kaymer returns to the UAE in January as the first of the new generation of golf stars to have both a Major title and a World Golf Championship trophy to his name. Having won last year’s renewal of the Abu Dhabi HSBC Golf Championship and November’s HSBC Champions he is also on the verge of an unprecedented treble. As Tim Maitland reports, there’s a good reason why he has such a remarkable record in Abu Dhabi.

Only ten players have ever won both a Major Championship and a WGC trophy. Since the World Golf Championships series was introduced in 1999, that tiny exclusive club has slowly grown, the founding member being Tiger Woods. Next in was Ernie Els in 2001. Surprisingly late arrivers were the two main challengers to Tiger at his brilliant best: Vijay Singh only claimed his first WGC in 2008, while Phil Mickelson’s 2009 WGC-HSBC Champions victory in Shanghai got him into the group.

Last November in Shanghai, Martin Kaymer, at twenty-six years of age, added the WGC-HSBC Champions to his 2010 PGA Championship.

Given how long we’ve been focused on emerging wunderkinds like Rory McIlroy, Rickie Fowler and Matteo Manassero, you’d be forgiven if you don’t immediately grasp how precocious the German’s talent is.

Rory McIlroy with Martin Kaymer Round 4 Abu Dhabi HSBC

This simple fact proves it: Kaymer is seven and a half years younger than the previous “baby” of the elite ten, Geoff Ogilvy, and just two days short of nine years junior to the next youngest in the list... Tiger Woods himself.

Just how far Kaymer is ahead of the rest of his generation is felt nowhere more strongly than in Abu Dhabi, where he is aiming for a unique sponsor’s treble. While the rest of the world can claim to have seen a trajectory to the young Dusseldorf native’s career, in Abu Dhabi, but for a missed cut right at the very start of his European Tour career, he has just been consistently brilliant.

It’s hard to believe, now that at the age of twenty, Kaymer was an amateur when he won his first event on the third-tier German-based EPD (European Professional Development) Tour in 2005. He turned professional that year, won the EPD’s 2006 Order of Merit and the chance to play on the Challenge Tour, winning his first event and again, a month later, sealing his European Tour card in just eight tournaments.

The outsider can see a logical development in his career from then on: from five top-ten finishes in his rookie season through to winning his first Major – the PGA Championship at Whistling Straits – and the Race to Dubai in 2010, and claiming the status of the world’s number one player in 2011.

The spectator whose one taste of tournament golf is the Abu Dhabi HSBC Golf Championship each year would be forgiven for thinking Kaymer just emerged from the pram that good: in four years he was won the event three times and, in an ‘off year’ in 2009, finished second.

But just as that fan would struggle to understand that Kaymer’s career has actually been one of progressive improvement, so Kaymer would have problems communicating why he now owns three trophies and has played 80-under-par over the past four years.

“It’s tough to explain, but it’s a combination of a lot of things, why I play well there. It’s just the whole package, I believe: I come from five or six weeks’ break, so first of all I’m very motivated to play golf again and to play a tournament again. Then we always stay at an unbelievable hotel at the Emirates Palace. I really like the people there; when I come to the clubhouse – I’ve known them four or five years now – we always recognize each other, we talk a little bit. It’s a very nice environment there. It’s a nice atmosphere and the way HSBC runs the tournament [with the ADTA], it’s very comfortable for us players,” says Kaymer, whose comfort levels must soar once he steps out onto the first tee.

“Every year you get to know the golf course better and better, but I think I know how to play that golf course in the easy way for me; that might be my advantage. I feel comfortable on every tee box I stand on; I really can feel the tee shot, I know where I can miss the tee shot in order to still have a shot towards the green, and another big advantage is that I can read those greens very well,” he continues, seemingly trying very hard not to use the ‘fits-my-eye’ phrase that can only really be understood by those who spend 25 weeks or more each year playing a different layout each week.

“If we compare Abu Dhabi to Augusta, for example, almost every tee shot in Abu Dhabi I stand on the tee box and can hit a little cut into the fairway or I can use a short cut over some bunkers; I just feel very comfortable. Even if I were to miss a shot, I’m still OK. My misses are fine. At Augusta I don’t feel very comfortable on a lot of the tee boxes when I stand there. The look of the hole in Abu Dhabi is very different,” he reveals.

That most temperamental of mistresses – the shortest stick in the bag – has also always behaved like an angel for Kaymer in Abu Dhabi, which probably goes without saying considering he has averaged five-under-par per round over his last four visits.

“I’ve always putted well there. I can read the greens well. I feel comfortable. I can still remember a lot of the putts that I’ve made in the past and that helped me a couple of times last year when I won again. Sometimes you have golf courses where you struggle to read the greens and sometimes you have golf courses where you go there every year and you know you’re going to putt well. It’s just one of those events where I know I will putt well.”

Though Kaymer wouldn’t say it feels like the course was made for him, given the chance, he would make it for himself.

“If I could build my own golf course it would be very close to the golf course in Abu Dhabi for sure. I just play very good golf on that golf course.”

Perfect Practice

There are plenty of theories, most of them proposed in jest, among the tour players as to why Kaymer has been so dominant at the Abu Dhabi Golf Club. Spain’s Pablo Martin, with tongue firmly in cheek, tested a few of those suggesting the German has no fun during the winter holiday.

“Everyone just competes for second place because Martin must not have any Christmas; he just practices. That’s why he wins by twenty-five shots! Everyone else is at home drinking and eating,” kids the two-time winner of South Africa’s Alfred Dunhill Championship, ignoring the fact that for that theory to stand up Kaymer would also have to fastidiously ignore his birthday, which falls three days later.

In joking around, Pablo inadvertently comes up with an explanation that even Kaymer doesn’t seem to have considered that much. As well as Kaymer, England’s Paul Casey has a ridiculous record in Abu Dhabi, winning in 2007 and 2009. Yes, both are long, straight hitters who can putt, but both share the same winter home, too.

“Paul and Martin both live in Arizona; either there is something in the water in Arizona or it doesn’t feel like Christmas in Arizona because it’s too hot!” Pablo Martin adds.

 “I really should get myself to Arizona next Christmas!” he laughs.

He should.

Specifically, if Pablo wants to win the Abu Dhabi HSBC Golf Championship, he should probably get himself to the Whisper Rock Golf Club, because the more Kaymer thinks about it, the more he realises the weeks he spends preparing for the season at his winter home is the perfect preparation for the tournament.

“It has nothing to with the water! Paul and I, when we practice in Arizona, we have very similar conditions and facilities [to the course in Abu Dhabi]. It’s a very similar golf course that we play in Scottsdale,” says Kaymer of the course, which is reported to have over 30 Tour professionals as members, including the designer Phil Mickelson, Fred Couples, Geoff Ogilvy and Aaron Baddely.

Among the winners of the annual club championship there are PGA Tour regulars Kevin Streelman (a former Whisper Rock caddie), Todd Demsey, Chez Reavie and Billy Mayfair, which instantly tells you the course is set up as close to tournament standards as you can get week-in and week-out.

The similarities are endless. The Upper Course at Whisper Rock even has exactly the same yardage from the back tees as the Abu Dhabi Golf Club will have for the 2012 tournament: 7,600 yards. Right down to the desert air, Kaymer couldn’t have picked a better place to practice.

“That’s what Arizona is about; it’s got a lot of desert. It has very similar bunkers and the sand in the bunkers is very similar. The greens are a little grainy, but not too much. Everything is very similar. The ball goes a similar distance. The weather is very similar; it’s 20 to 25 degrees [Celsius] when we practice there and when we go to Abu Dhabi it’s the same. So there’s no adjustment necessary when we come from the break,” Kaymer explains.

In a nutshell, in spending his winter preparing to challenge the world’s best for the next season, Kaymer is inadvertently yet very specifically preparing to excel in Abu Dhabi in the first week of his season. 

Champions’ Boost

By his own reckoning this winter’s preparations were energised by finishing the 2011 campaign with a World Golf Championship record-setting comeback at the WGC-HSBC Champions in Shanghai.

“To win such a big event, the HSBC in Shanghai, a World Golf Championship event with the best players in the world participating, it definitely gives you a boost. All of a sudden you want to practice even harder, you want to win more tournaments; it gives you a little bit more motivation for the next year. I can’t wait to tee it up in Arizona when we play the next one [the WGC-Accenture Match Play Championship] and when we play Doral, another World Golf Championship event, and going towards the Masters,” says Kaymer, whose nine-under-par 63 was the lowest final round by a winner in the history of the WGC stroke-play events.

“Before the win in Shanghai it was not a great season, but if you win such a big event – the year before, I won a major; last year I won a World Golf Championship – in Asia! I’ve won a few tournaments in Europe already, I won a Major in America and now I’ve won in Asia: in all three continents, I’ve done something very special. The win proved myself again. It proved …that hard work will pay off! I worked really hard in the summer time and the fall; I was practising very hard on my game and I was working out really hard in the gym and I really wanted to achieve something. I was running out of tournaments, so was really happy that it still happened and for it to be such a big event. I wouldn’t say it saved my season, but it definitely made it more satisfying.”

That season certainly had not lived up to the anticipation created by the way he opened the year. Much to his own amazement, Kaymer’s winning in Abu Dhabi had lifted him above Tiger Woods in the world rankings. Reaching the final of the WGC-Accenture Match Play Championship, where he lost 3 & 1 to Luke Donald, took him to the top spot for the first time. What followed – including missed cuts at the Masters Tournament and the US PGA Championship, and only five other top-ten finishes between his personal HSBC double – was, by the standards of his seemingly inexorable rise, a relative disappointment.

Kaymer has repeatedly said it was down to the unexpected aspects of topping the Official Golf World Rankings. The golf world, including many players, has talked about Kaymer altering his game with an eye on the Masters, something he emphatically denies.

“Everybody says I changed my swing for Augusta, which is not true. I’m not changing my swing for one golf course! With my golf swing I’ve become number one in the world; there’s no reason why I should change it! The only reason why I wanted to adjust my golf swing was because I saw room for improvement. That improvement, if I could get there, would help me in Augusta and maybe that’s why people might say ‘He changed his swing for Augusta’, but it’s not true,” he explains patiently.

What is true is that Kaymer did work hard last winter to try and improve his ability to shape the ball right-to-left to complement his natural fade. He views it as adding another weapon to his arsenal, but asserts that the fact that other people don’t interpret that way doesn’t bother him.

“To be able to hit the draw – if you can add another option to your ball flight it will definitely make you into a better player. I would have more possibilities for golf shots on different golf courses – of course in Augusta – and I think that would make me more comfortable in Augusta if I could add a couple of things to my golf.

“I know what I need to do and I know what I do, and I talk to my coach about it and that is the most important thing. What people make out of it in the end is not in my hands. If people ask me, I will tell them the truth and what I feel about it; what they write and say after that is out of my hands. It doesn’t bother me and it doesn’t disturb me.”

Being #1

What he does admit disturbed him was the reaction to his becoming world number one. Compared to the sport’s traditional heartlands, a successful German golfer lives in relative anonymity. That changed when his Abu Dhabi HSBC Golf Championship win and runner-up finish at the WGC-Accenture Match Play Championship thrust him above first Tiger and then Lee Westwood.

Looking back at that period immediately after his WGC-HSBC Champions win in November, Kaymer told a packed press conference why it was a struggle.

“It was a tough stretch of months, because it's not normal that at my age you become No. 1 in the world.  All of a sudden, you have more attention: Doesn't matter really where you go. In my own country, I became the German golf face. In America, a lot of people recognised me because obviously golf is a little bit bigger in America than in Germany. But it has been, you know, a little awkward situation sometimes, because I was just not used to be that much in the spotlight,” he said at the time.

With a little more time to consider, Kaymer says it wasn’t just how number one status affected him, but that it affected everyone to whom he was close.

“The whole thing in the beginning was very strange because no-one in my inner circle [had experienced it]: my manager had never had a player who was number one in the world; all of a sudden my family and me had more attention in Germany; and, the people I work with found it a little bit difficult to begin with. Now we know what’s going to happen,” he says, revealing just how high being number one again sits in his list of priorities.

“I will set new goals for the new year: to play well again in the World Golf Championship events and in the Majors. And for sure the goal is to get back to number one in the world, now I know how it feels to be number one; how to approach it and how to handle that position. Obviously it was fun and I learned a lot and I’d love to be back on top.”

Fearless Defender

Getting back to the top might depend on whether the current incumbent, Luke Donald, continues with his run of stunning consistency in 2012. All Kaymer can do is get back to playing at the level with which he bookmarked his 2011 season.

Of course he starts in his happiest of happy places, Abu Dhabi, where his domination could be described as Tiger-esque. Living up to such a fantastic record would eventually weigh on most players, but like Woods, Kaymer seems to react differently: wins follow wins.

If you group together his three Abu Dhabi wins as one packet, three more of his career victories came in three successive appearances in 2010, when he sandwiched a victorious Ryder Cup appearance in between winning his Major and claiming the KLM Open and the Dunhill Links, while his two wins in 2009 came in back-to-back weeks. That’s eight of his 10 stroke-play wins since earning his European Tour card neatly bundled in bursts of unbridled confidence.

When you consider all of that, it’s no wonder that once again facing all the attention that comes with defending his title at the Abu Dhabi HSBC Golf Championship doesn’t bother him in the slightest.

“I don’t think it’s more pressure at all. If you’ve won a title there shouldn’t be more pressure at all. It should give you even more confidence to do it again because you know you’ve been successful at that golf course already, so it shouldn’t add any more pressure. I don’t feel that at all. I really like defending titles because if you’ve got all that good experience from the previous year I think it gives you the belief that you can win again. I can approach the tournament in Abu Dhabi with a very, very positive mindset.

“It could happen that I don’t win this year – I could not even finish top 10 there this year – but the combination that I come from a long break and am motivated to play again, that you go to a golf course where you’ve been successful and a golf course that you know very well and that you feel very good about… The last four years worked out quite well for me, but I don’t know what’s going to happen in 2012. The predictions are quite good!”

This year he will have to overcome the best field he’s ever faced in Abu Dhabi, and what organizers say will be the best ever assembled in the Middle East, as well as his own hero.

“It’s great for Abu Dhabi that Tiger Woods is coming and more international players are coming from America. Last year Phil Mickelson played and it proves how good that tournament is and how much fun it is to be in Abu Dhabi and play the HSBC tournament. It’s not making it easier to win there, but I’m not going there to pick out an easy win. It’s nice to have the challenge and see if I can win again.

“Tiger Woods, in the last couple of years maybe he didn’t play great golf, but he’s played unbelievable golf since 1996, since he first came to the Masters. He’ll always be one of the big players at any tournament he goes to. He’ll always be great for us players as well, to have him there,” says Kaymer, who was almost in awe when he learned after his Abu Dhabi triumph in 2011 that he had passed Woods in the rankings.

“It was something very special; he’d been number one in the world for around eight years and there was no-one really close, ever! Then all of a sudden you overtake the best player who ever played the game,” Kaymer marvels.

“It felt a little unreal, but it also told me that I was able to do things that I maybe thought I wasn’t able to do in the beginning.”

 

Martin Kaymer in Abu Dhabi

2011: 1^st 264 -24

2010: 1^st 267 -21

2009: 2^nd 268 -20

2008: 1^st 273 -15

2007: MC 144 EVEN

The 10 Major and WGC winners

Tiger Woods (USA)

b. December 30, 1975 (1975-12-30) (age 35)  

14 Majors and 16 World Golf Championships (plus 2000 World Cup)

Phil Mickelson (USA)

b. June 16, 1970 (1970-06-16) (age 41) 

4 Majors and 2 World Golf Championships

Ernie Els (South Africa)

b. 17 October 1969 (1969-10-17) (age 42) 

3 Majors and 2 World Golf Championships (plus 2001 World Cup)

Vijay Singh (Fiji)

b. 22 February 1963 (1963-02-22) (age 48) 

3 Majors and 1 World Golf Championship (2008 WGC-Bridgestone Invitational)

Geoff Ogilvy (Australia)

b. 11 June 1977 (1977-06-11) (age 34) 

1 Major (2006 US Open) and 3 World Golf Championships

Darren Clarke (N. Ireland)

b. 14 August 1968 (1968-08-14) (age 43) 

1 Major (2011 Open Championship) and 2 World Golf Championships

Martin Kaymer (Germany)

b. 28 December 1984 (1984-12-28) (age 26)

1 Major (2010 PGA Championship) and 1 World Golf Championship (2011 WGC-HSBC Champions)

Stewart Cink (USA)

b. May 21, 1973 (1973-05-21) (age 38) 

1 Major (2009 Open Championship) and 1 World Golf Championship (2004 WGC-NEC Invitational)

David Toms (USA)

b. January 4, 1967 (1967-01-04) (age 44) 

1 Major (2001 PGA Championship) and 1 World Golf Championship (2005 WGC-Accenture Match Play Championship)

Mike Weir (Canada)

b. May 12, 1970 (1970-05-12) (age 41) 

1 Major (2003 Masters Tournament) and 1 World Golf Championship (2000 WGC-American Express Championship)

Martin Kaymer Profile:

Personal

Nationality: German

Born:  28^th December, 1984 Dusseldorf, Germany

Height/Weight: 6ft 1/2 in/11st 9lb (184cm/74kg)

Lives:  Mettmann, Dusseldorf, Germany and Scottsdale, Arizona, United States

Other interests:  Football, basketball and go-karting

Career

Professional wins:

2011:

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

Abu Dhabi HSBC Golf Championship, Abu Dhabi Golf Club, Abu Dhabi, UAE

2010:

Alfred Dunhill Links Championship, Old Course St. Andrews, Carnoustie and Kingsbarns, Fife & Angus, Scotland

Ryder Cup, Celtic Manor Resort, Newport, Wales

KLM Open, Hilversumsche Golf Club, Hilversum, Netherlands

US PGA Championship, Whistling Straits, Kohler, Wisconsin, USA

Abu Dhabi Golf Championship, Abu Dhabi Golf Club, Abu Dhabi, UAE

2009:

Barclays Scottish Open, Loch Lomond Golf Club, Glasgow, Scotland

Open de France, Le Golf National, Paris, France

2008:

BMW International Open, Golfclub München Eichenried, Munich, Germany

Abu Dhabi Golf Championship, Abu Dhabi Golf Club, Abu Dhabi, UAE

European Challenge Tour

2006: Open de Volcans; Vodafone Challenge

EPD Tour

2006: Hockenberg Classic; Winterbrock Classic; ; Coburg Brose Open; Habsberg Classic; Friedberg Classic

2005: Central German Classic (Am)

Other Professional Landmarks:

November 2011 Became only the 10^th player to win both a Major and a WGC title with his victory in the WGC-HSBC Champions

February 2011 Moved to career-high 1^st in Official World Golf Ranking after reaching final of WGC-Accenture Match Play Championship final

January 2011 Moved to career-high 2^nd in Official World Golf Ranking after Abu Dhabi HSBC Golf Championship victory

December 2010 Joint winner of Race to Dubai European Tour Golfer of the Year with Graeme McDowell

November 2010 Winner, European Tour Race to Dubai

August to October 2010 Recorded four wins in four consecutive appearances starting with his first Major and including the Ryder Cup.

January 2010 Moved to career -high 6^th in Official World Golf Ranking after Abu Dhabi Golf Championship victory. First time in top 10 of OWGR.

July 2009 Won back-to-back in successive weeks at the French and Scottish Opens.

January 2009 Moved to career -high 34^th in Official World Golf Ranking after Abu Dhabi Golf Championship victory. First time in top 50 of OWGR.  At the time, the only player under 25 years of age in the top 50.

November 2007 Became first German to win Sir Henry Cotton Rookie of the Year

October 2006 Earned European Tour card by finishing fourth in the 2006 Challenge Tour Rankings, despite playing only eight events towards the end of the season

photo credit: Zimbio.com 

 

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Golf and Brazil's International Olympic Growth Potential (part 2)

 August 5^th 2011 marks five years to go before Rio de Janeiro hosts South America’s first Olympics and golf returns to sports’ biggest stage for the first time since 1904. Tim Maitland looks at how the sport is evolving in Brazil as 2016 inches nearer, from building awareness in the sport to golf as an international business. Read the first segment here, What Will Olympic Status do for Golf in Brazil?


Building Awareness

Typically, tournament golf is one of the biggest drivers of awareness in any emerging golf market, but the days when Gary Player, Ray Floyd, Jerry Pate and Hale Irwin etched their names on the Aberto do Brasil or Brazil Open trophy in the 70s and 80s are a distant memory. And the European Tour’s Brazil Rio de Janeiro 500 Years Open and Brazil Sao Paolo 500 Years Open as part of the celebrations of Pedro Alvaras Cabral’s “discovery” of the country in 1500 did no more than mark the anniversary and quickly disappeared.

For the moment, it’s left to the limited-field unofficial HSBC LPGA Brasil Cup to fly the flag as the only truly international tournament. From a perspective of golf’s heartlands it might be hard to believe that a US $720,000 event could sustain the role, but the feedback locally says otherwise.

Rachid Orra, with his South American Golf Federation hat on, described the victory by Columbia’s Mariajo Uribe at the end of May over a field that included both Cristie Kerr and Suzann Pettersen, as being as significant to the region as Jhonattan Vegas’ victory at the Bob Hope Classic in January; even though Vega’s win has single-handedly changed Venezuela president Hugo Chavez’s attitude to the sport.

“Symbolically, it’s the same thing because it’s a girl that has beaten some of the best players in the world!” declares Orra.

“It’s very important for us. It’s an example for the young girls that want to play golf to see one girl from Colombia – a country like Brazil – can win a very important tournament. The coming of the HSBC LPGA Brasil Cup was a very important step for us, taken three years ago. This is another one. Both are very, very, very important.”

Before the event, Rio’s biggest newspaper, O Globo, shoved aside some of its wall-to-wall soccer coverage to give Pettersen and Kerr posing at a photocall on Botafogo beach prime position on the second page of its sport section, briefly relegating the news of Flamengo, Fluminense, Botafogo and Vasco da Gama. Such coverage of golf hasn’t been seen in recent memory.

“It was fantastic. That helps a lot. I think the last time was back in the 70s when there were fewer things to cover and it got more space, but it was still very limited and very few people read newspapers at that time,” says Ribeiro.

“The HSBC LPGA Brasil Cup is a huge driver in terms of creating interest. People are not accustomed to seeing golf. The exposure on TV is very limited normally. The Majors and big championships are on just one cable channel or maybe on the Golf Channel, which is still very small. The HSBC LPGA Brasil Cup is covered by SporTV, which has five times more viewers than all of the channels that carry golf combined. Just with that we’re reaching five times the average audience for golf.”

Naturally, the LPGA is eager to expand its tournament, but the business of tournament golf is caught in the same Catch-22 in Rio; for events to grow there need to be more people who have got the golf bug, but to get the golf bug you have to get infected first, and for most people that means swinging a club somewhere…but where?

Counter-intuitively, one of the best ways of developing tournament golf in Rio de Janeiro may be to move out of Rio for the time being. One could argue that taking the seedling that is international tournament golf to the more fertile nursery of Sao Paulo, one of the biggest financial centres and richest cities in the world where there are almost fifty golf courses, would allow more rapid short-term growth. There, an event could forge closer links with the international business community, moving back to Rio as a more robust sapling once the opening of the new Olympic facility had created the significant increase in the city’s golf population that such an event needs.

Golf’s International Business

That’s not to say that relatively slow spectator growth has to hamper the development of the tournament as a whole. As Kotheimer explains, having the only international event in a sport that resonates with the international business community is a powerful tool to educate and inform potential clients about his business’s ability to cross borders.

“We have a tournament with thirty golfers and if you look at the list of players you see a Canadian golfer, an Australian golfer, an Argentine golfer, Spain, Chile, the US, Brazil, England, Paraguay, Taiwan, Sweden, Columbia, Norway, and Korea. The global connectivity of this sport pretty much mirrors the connectivity of HSBC around the world. Our focus for our clients in Brazil is the connectivity between Brazil and China, Brazil and Mexico and so on. There’s an alignment with what golf is doing internationally with what we’re doing internationally,” he says.

Yet, even if Rio doesn’t solve its dilemma quickly, things are still evolving exponentially. It would be wrong to say that Olympic status has opened doors for the sport because, such is the elite nature of golf’s status in Brazil that most of the great and good were all ready members of Itanhanga or Gavea, but it has thrown golf right into the middle of much bigger conversations.

The landscape is changing, too. The Confederacao Brasileira de Golfe has just announced a domestic national tour, starting small with a plan for three events in 2011. By the end of the year the Tour de las Americas is likely to be absorbed into a far larger Latin American PGA Tour covering South America and the Caribbean and providing the region’s top players a direct route into the Nationwide Tour and, hopefully, following Brazil’s Alex Rocha and Jhonattan Vegas into the big leagues.

“It’s a big effort. It’s a very, very important thing, because it’s a new tour made for South America and the money-size of South American tournaments and with the help of the biggest tour in the world. It’s a big step. This will help to form new players and make them grow. We hope in the future we will have many Jhonattan Vegases and a Tiger Woods from Brazil,” Orra states.

High Society Meets the Favelas

Golf is reaching out, which given its high-end origins is one of the most impressive aspects of the way the sport is changing. Maria Priscila Iida is talking during a short break between helping teach groups of children from Rio’s favelas, the city’s infamous hillside slums and shanty towns, the day before the 2011 HSBC LPGA Brasil Cup at the Itanhanga course. The idea of clinics for disadvantaged children before a professional tournament is nothing new to the golf world, but it represents an enormous quantum shift in the mentality of the Brazilian golf community caused by Olympic status.

“This thing with the children is incredible. Who would have thought we could do something like this?” Iida asks rhetorically.

“Most of the golf courses are private; if you came here nobody would let you through the gates, but now they’re calling out and trying to make something bigger.”

Photo credit: PGA.com
1959 Brazil Open Golf Championship Medal Commemorative on eBay


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HSBC LPGA Golf Stars Issue Olympic Rallying Call

Two of the world’s leading golfers landed in Rio for the HSBC LPGA Brasil Cup with a simple message for the sport: “Next Stop: Olympics - Let’s grab this opportunity with both hands”, Tim Maitland reports.

World number two Suzann Pettersen and number four Cristie Kerr believe Rio 2016 represents a once in a lifetime chance for the sport to establish itself in a country where less than one in every eight thousand people currently play the game.

Less than a week after battling it out in the final of the Sybase Match Play Championship in New Jersey, Pettersen and Kerr sat on lounge chairs sipping glasses of fruit juice on Botafogo Beach, hoping it would be the last occasion they will have time to enjoy Rio de Janeiro’s sun-kissed sand.

“We’ve got five years before we return for the Olympics in Rio and the HSBC LPGA Brasil Cup is the one foundation stone our sport has to build on,” said Pettersen, in the build up to this weekend’s two-day, limited-field event at the Itanhanga Golf Club.

“We can’t miss this opportunity!” declared the Norwegian, who was one of the team that successfully argued the case for golf’s return to the IOC two years ago.

“Sitting in the shadow of Sugarloaf Mountain is spectacular and Rio is stunning, but if we’re going to grasp the Olympic opportunity we have to continue to grow here. We’ve got the best field of women’s golfers Brazil has ever seen, so this week is already a success but we need to keep getting bigger,” added Kerr, aware that golf needs a bigger base than the 25,000 players among the estimated 200 million people who make up the world’s fifth most populous country and a nation that boasts one of the fastest-growing major economies in the world.

Kerr and Pettersen also spent time swapping tips on bunker play with children from the R&A-funded Japeri Project, a community programme that is developing over 100 young golfers from one of the poorer areas of the city.

“Both Brazil and golf needs the kind of top-and-bottom approach that we have traditionally taken with our golf sponsorships in Asia and around the rest of the world. The sport needs growth in number of participants and it needs to spread demographically,” said Giles Morgan, HSBC Group Head of Sponsorship.

“At the top end, the sport needs to grow its profile and to build the profile of the top players. Improving the quality of the leading international tournament in Brazil is one step and the steps are only going to get bigger the closer golf gets to the 2016 Olympics, especially with the rate Brazil’s economy is growing.”

Note: Columbia's Mariajo Uribe won the HSBC LPGA Brasil Cup, which took place the weekend of 28th and 29th May. The Brazil Cup, an unofficial two day event, offered prize money of US$720,000 and attracted four Major champions and twelve LPGA tournament winners in the thirty player field. Uribe won by a single stroke over Lindsey Wright.

Photo Credit: TheGlobeandMail.com


For more information: www.lpgabrasil.com.br

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Should the Golf World Learn Spanish?

Men’s professional golf in South and Central America is about to take a leap forward with the launch of the PGA Tour Latinoamerica. With economic forecasts predicting that the region is going to be one of the most significant contributors to the growth in global trade, Tim Maitland looks at whether in the future the best investment the golf world can make is studying Spanish and Portuguese.



 For those in the golf industry who are still need to check their Mandarin phrase book before they can tell their一号木yi hao mu (driver) from their 推杆 tui gan (putter), the thought of learning a whole new language – or two given how Portuguese-speaking Brazil now boasts the world’s sixth largest economy – will be terrifying. It might be worth the effort.

 “Definitely! They definitely need to!” says Jhonattan Vegas, the 27-year-old Venezuelan whose remarkable 2011 rookie season on the PGA Tour has sparked one of the latest growth spurts in Latin America.

 “Obviously we’ve got great players, starting through the Argentineans, through Camilo Villegas and then me coming into the picture. I think it’s really growing; we’ve got a lot of kids with great potential coming up and I think they’re realising that it’s a dream that can come true, so I think it’s heading the right way.”

Almost everywhere one looks at the region there are reasons for optimism, but one can argue that they have been seen before and not amounted to as much as promised. It might have happened after Argentina’s Roberto De Vicenzo won the 1967 Open Championship and became the first Major winner from outside the traditional English-speaking golfing nations since Arnaud Massey of France in 1907. The game might have exploded at anytime from the 1950s through to the ‘80s when you could see players like Sam Snead, Arnold Palmer, Gary Player, Tom Weiskopf, Lee Trevino, Hale Irwin or Bernhard Langer winning anywhere from Panama through Argentina, Brazil, Mexico to Colombia.

The Olympics and Economics

The logic in suggesting that this time it’s different is two-fold. First, the return of golf to the Olympic Games in Rio de Janeiro in 2016 is opening doors for the game and, as we enter the four-year cycle post London 2012, opening the wallets of governments and national Olympic committees. Second, the economic predictions for the region are so positive it’s almost impossible to conceive of any reasons why golf won’t be along for the ride.

Earlier this year HSBC’s Global Connections Trade Forecast predicted that from 2012 to 2026 international businesses will increase global trade by 86 per cent to a total of US$53.8 trillion, but that trade growth in Latin America will be 30 per cent faster than for the rest of the world.

“If you take the emergence and development of golf in China as an example, it reappeared because Hong Kong and Chinese Taipei businesses started relocating their manufacturing bases to Southern China. From there came the investment in golf courses. It’s very hard to believe that, if the predictions for Latin America are proved correct, the growth in the economies and the influx of global business expertise won’t increase the demand for golf and that some of the investment flowing into the region won’t find its way into investment in golf” explains Giles Morgan, HSBC Group Head of Sponsorship, citing Brazil’s financial capital Sao Paulo and the 50-plus courses now in Sao Paulo State as an example.

Trade between Emerging Markets

It’s not just Brazil where growth can be anticipated. The same HSBC Global Connections Trade Forecast predicts that Peru and Panama will join Brazil in the top five Emerging Growth Importers between 2012 and 2016, and that Panama’s trade forecast will grow by almost 230 per cent in the next 14 years, fuelled by the scheduled completion of the widening of the Panama Canal and the development of shipping lanes to Singapore and between North and South America.

“What’s particularly intriguing for the golf world is where the new investment in golf in Latin America is going to come from. The reason the forecasts for trade growth are so high is because of the way trade between emerging markets is going to increase. China is going to overtake the USA as the world’s largest trading nation by 2016. It doesn’t take a huge feat of imagination to see the day when Chinese investors start putting their money into creating golf courses in the emerging markets they’re working in, because many of those investors are already engaged with golf in their own country,” explains Morgan.

Idols and Leaders

Unlike China, one of the main forces driving an increase in golf’s popularity in Latin America will be the performance of its stars. Whether it was Mexico’s Lorena Ochoa and her short but stellar career as the world’s undisputed number one woman golfer, Argentina’s Angel Cabrera winning the 2007 US Open and the 2009 Masters, Colombia’s Camilo Villegas heartthrob looks taking golf onto the front pages of his country’s newspapers for the first time, or Paraguay’s Julieta Granada snaffling the US$1 million prize at the ADT Championship in November 2006, much of golf’s progress into the public consciousness has been through the performances of a handful of the region’s successful pros.

“It’s very typical in our region; we’re very used to idols and leaders. That needed to happen in golf for the rest of the aspects to happen. I think all this starts with heroes,” explains Henrique Lavie, the Venezuelan former professional and current Commissioner of the Tour de las Americas, who will become Executive Director of the PGA Tour Latinoamerica.

How quickly that can work in the region is illustrated both by Granada and Vegas. Granada reckons she would be recognised by around one out of every five people in the streets of Paraguay’s capital Asuncion; “They say ‘Are you the one that plays the little white ball in the hole?’ It’s very funny!” she says.

Vegas is credited with bringing about an even bigger shift in attitudes towards golf in his native Venezuela. His victory at the 2011 Bob Hope Classic witnessed a significant change in rhetoric from Hugo Chavez, the socialist President of the Republic of Venezuela.

In late 2010 Reuters reported that Chavez stating that "You, bourgeoisie, should offer your golf courses," to flood victims. Months later, following Vegas’ first victory on the PGA Tour, AP was reporting Chavez saying in a televised speech "I'm not an enemy of golf. I'm not an enemy of any sport."

“I didn’t change his mind, I just gave him a different perspective of what the game is really about,” Vegas explains.

“It’s gone from people thinking it’s a rich man’s sport to a game that everyone can play; which is huge, because I come from a family that is not really wealthy.”

Male-Dominated

For the women, the story in recent times has been slightly different. Granada, points out that part of the problem for women’s golf in Latin America is that those players who do make it to the top don’t stay for long. Two South Americans won on the LPGA in 2005 - Colombia’s Marisa and Chile’s first LPGA player Nicole Perrot –neither are still on the tour.

In that context, it’s easy to understand why last year’s win for another Colombian, Mariajo Uribe, at the limited-field, two-round unofficial HSBC LPGA Brasil Cup in Rio de Janeiro was greeted with what would otherwise seem to be near hysteria. Uribe herself predicted it would make “a huge impact on South American golf”, while Rachid Orra, at the time serving his spell as the President of the South American Golf Federation and who is still the leader of the Brazilian Golf Confederation declared “Symbolically, the same thing” as Vegas’ PGA victory.

The two-day 30-player US$720,000 tournament in Rio, which this year is known as the LPGA Brasil Cup presented by HSBC, remains the highest profile women’s golf event in the region.

The Olympic movement offers the more immediate hope that things will improve. The International Olympic Committee has driven women’s participation in the Olympics up from 23 per cent in 1984 to 43 per cent in Beijing four years ago. Couple that with the fact that investment from NOCs and governments is estimated to be worth around US$200 million a year worldwide to a sport like badminton; even a small slice of that for women’s golf would be more than it has ever seen before and could hardly fail to create significant change.

“I hope the money brings that access and people just get organised and get it done; the money helps, that’s a big part of it,” Granada states.

Horses Not Courses

If we are looking at the beginning of a golf boom in South America, it’s not a result of an explosion in the number of courses. Up-to-date statistics are hard to come by, the most reliable recent figures being from a KPMG Golf Benchmark Survey in 2008, which reported approximately 550 courses in South America with an estimated 130 under construction. Almost half of those courses were in Argentina.

Brazil has grown significantly. According to the Brazilian Golf Confederation the number of golfers has more than tripled since 2000 to 25,000 players is a drop in the ocean compared to the 10 million that, economically, they could be reaching.

“The size of golf in South America is pretty much what it was 10 years ago. The size of golf, the number of courses and the number of golfers is pretty much what it was at that time,” reveals Duncan Weir, the R and A’s Executive Director of Working for Golf.

“I think there has been a rise in the prominence and achievement levels of the top players rather than a dramatic rise in the participation levels and facilities. The leading amateurs are getting easier access to the American colleges and people like Villegas and Vegas are examples of that. They’re being spotted early by US college coaches.”

Crossing the Andes on a Unicycle

The problem is that uprooting and going to the USA at an early age is pretty much the only option, not an easy one considering that poverty, not wealth, has been behind many famous careers: Puerto Rican World Golf Hall of Fame member “Chi Chi” Rodriguez started golfing with a tin can and a stick. Paraguayan veteran Carlos Franco grew up in a dirt-floored, one-room home. Angel Cabrera lived under two brick walls and a tin roof. Andres Romero’s story is similar; a family of 10 with two bedrooms and no running water.

This is where the importance of the Tour de las Americas’ impending merger with the PGA Tour becomes apparent. In the last four months of this year the newly created PGA Tour Latinoamerica will stage 11 events, with the aim of expanding to 16 to 18 tournaments, each with a minimum purse of US$130,000. It’s not the increase in prize money – this year players were competing for a share of US$40,000 at Chile’s Abierto de Golf Los Lirios and for just US$10,000 more in Peru – but the structure. With success, a golfer can play his way into Nationwide Tour stops and the two PGA Tour events played in the region. Finishing at the top of the Order of Merit will bring Nationwide Tour status for the lucky few. Potentially, that increases the chances of a golfer who can’t find his way to the States growing and maturing far closer to home.

“It’s not because they will receive more money; they will spend much less money, so it’s easier. This is the importance of this circuit,” states Rachid Orra, the Brazilian Golf Confederation’s President.

“The majority of players don’t have the money to go to the States and start playing there, so it’s very difficult. If they can start their career in South America it makes thing much, much easier,” he adds.

Investment + Opportunity = Growth

Just how far and how rapidly golf in the region develops from here depends on an infinite number of factors. The main driver could be the future success of the kids currently emerging from college, the impact of the Olympics or from the other end of the scale the demand caused by increasing numbers of expatriate recreational golfers and growing upper-middle classes. What is clear is that there is plenty of scope.

“I think the potential is huge. It’s a continent of not that many golf courses in total. If you want to do a broad comparison there are currently about the same number of golf courses in Scotland, which has about 540, as there are in all of South America,” says the R&A’s Duncan Weir.

Together with the opportunities the other key ingredient needed is finance.

“The predictions at both ends of the scale are for unprecedented growth. There is going to be unprecedented investment in golf at a national level worldwide because of the Olympics in Rio. There is going to be unprecedented growth in trade and in economies in the Latin American region in the foreseeable future, which past experience indicates will result in an increase in demand for, and availability of, golf facilities. There’s investment and there’s opportunity; combine those two together and the end result is growth. Creo sucederá al final!” explains HSBC’s Giles Morgan finishing with the Spanish phrase meaning ‘I believe it will happen in the end’.

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photo credit: randa.org

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