WGC-HSBC Champions, Sheshan International GC
Introduction
The fifth HSBC Champions will boast its strongest field yet, with three quarters of the world’s top 20 golfers teeing off in Shanghai, including both Woods and Mickelson. This is also the first year the event has held World Golf Championship status, a group of events the World number one has dominated in the past.
Of the previous winners here, only the tournament’s first Champion — David Howell — is not in this year’s field with Yong-eun Yang, Phil Mickelson and defending champ Sergio Garcia all returning in an attempt to add a second title. The first two years saw the eventual winner go toe-to-toe with Tiger in the final pairing on Sunday and win, while the last two have both ended in playoff heartbreak for Englishmen (Oliver Wilson last year, Ross Fisher and Lee Westwood in 2007).
Key Stats
- Tiger Woods has won 12 of his 19 stroke play WGC tournaments.
- Half of the 16 players ranked in the world’s top 10 at the time of the event have finished in the top five in the HSBC Champions.
- All four winners of the HSBC Champions had won a tournament and had multiple top-10 finishes in the previous 12 weeks.
- Of the 22 top-five finishers at the HSBC Champions, 16 had had a top-five finish on a European Tour sanctioned event in SE Asia previously — but none of the four winners had.
Current form
The timing of the HSBC Champions means a lot of the participants have played relatively little golf in the build up to the event, with the previous four winners playing a combined nine events in their five weeks prior to their win. All four had played within the last fortnight however and only David Howell (38th) in 2006 had not placed in the top 25 in their most recent event. Indeed, last year’s winner, Sergio Garcia, had won two weeks previously at the Castelló Masters and had followed that up with another top-five place at Valderrama.
While the immediate form of the winners is somewhat mixed, all four had won elsewhere in the 12 weeks between the US PGA and the HSBC Champions (YE Yang doing so twice on the Japanese Tour in 2006) and missed no more than one cut. Also, only Phil Mickelson in 2007 (none and three, respectively) had not had multiple top-10 finishes in the last eight weeks and at least five top-20s in the last 12 weeks. Nine of this year’s field have won at least once since the PGA Championship and missed fewer than two cuts — five of whom have had multiple top 10s in the last eight weeks: Tiger Woods, Lee Westwood, Simon Dyson, Matt Kuchar and Alex Noren (Ian Poulter has also done as well as Mickelson had).
Looking further back at the winners’ results in the year prior to winning the HSBC Champions and only David Howell had not recorded multiple wins, while all four players had had at least four top-five finishes and at least eight top-10s. Just four players in the field match all of those criteria: Tiger Woods, Lee Westwood, Sean O’Hair and Retief Goosen — only Woods and Goosen have won more than once this year.
Expanding the sample of tournaments to include all European Tour sanctioned events in SE Asia played at this time of year over the last 10 years finds the majority (12/19) of winners having already won that year, with 14 of them having recorded at least three top-five finishes in that time and the same number having had five or more top-10s. Just five of the 19 winners had not had a top-10 finish in the eight weeks prior to their win and the majority (11/19) had placed in the top five at least once in that time. 12 of the field match all of those criteria: Woods, Mickelson, Westwood, O’Hair, Poulter, Goosen, Dyson, Noren, Martin Kaymer, Rory McIlroy, Gaganjeet Bhullar and Chapchai Nirat.
Tournament form
Sergio’s win last year was the first by a player not making his debut in the event, although that was only the fourth edition of the HSBC Champions. The majority (45/78) of the field have played at Sheshan before, with seven players featuring in all five events — including Paul Casey, Padraig Harrington, Henrik Stenson and Ian Poulter. Casey has done particularly well here, finishing between 6th and 11th in each of his four previous visits. He is one of five of the top-six ranked players in the field to record a pair of top-10 finishes (the only one not to finish in the top five), although Woods (2nd in 2006 and 2007) is the only player with multiple top-five finishes.
Expanding tournament form to look at all European Tour sanctioned events in SE Asia and none of the four past winners had won such a tournament before. Bizarrely, of the 22 players to place in the top five (including ties) in the four previous tournaments, only six had not had a top-five finish in such an event before — four of whom were the winners of the HSBC Champions. Three of them had had at least one top-20 finish however — Phil Mickelson was playing in his first such event — although none had done well in their last such tournament, with finishes of 46th, MC and 55th.
This being the HSBC Champions’ first year as a WGC event it is worth noting Tiger’s history in these competitions: winning 12 of the 19 WGC stroke play tournaments he has played in, finishing in the top five in 17 of them and the top 10 in all of them. The figures are slightly enhanced by his incredible record at Firestone (seven wins in nine since 1999), although that still leaves him with five wins in 10 tournaments on all other courses.
Winner/Each-way
The first issue to deal with in an event featuring the world number one is whether Woods’s (3.0) short price represents value or not. We feel that this is one of the weeks that it does, with Tiger fitting all the criteria of former winners of both this event and all European Tour sanctioned events in SE Asia. In addition, he has won 12 of his 19 WGC stroke play tournaments, has finished second here on his two previous visits and has won all seven of the nine times he has played a stroke play tournament more than three weeks since he last did so over the last four years — including the last six in a row.
Tiger is the only player above Lee Westwood (23.0) in the form rankings with the Englishman boasting seven top-10 finishes in his last eight events — and he is the only other player to match all of the former winners’ criteria. He has done well here before as well (2nd in 2008 and 12th in 2006) and, having finally found the winners enclosure again recently, looks the most likely person to challenge Woods this week.
A few other players share a number of the form patterns of former winners, led by Ian Poulter (36.0), Simon Dyson (67.0) and Alex Noren (81.0). Poulter’s and Noren’s Dyson ball striking (both rank in the top 10 on the European Tour in GIR%) give them the edge over Dyson for us, with the Swede getting the nod on the basis of price.
Strong Recommendations
Recommendations
- Lee Westwood at 21.0 e/w (1/4 1-5)
- Alex Noren at 71.0 e/w (1/4 1-5)