Rory McIlroy is there, so too is Jordan Spieth. Rickie Fowler and Bubba Watson are also there but amid this shimmering cast of global stars it could be the dark horse of Shane Lowry who could be full of eastern promise in this week’s WGC-HSBC Champions event in Shanghai.
The 28-year-old lines up in the £5.5 million championship aiming to become just the second player, after Tiger Woods, to win back-to-back WGC titles. Lowry, who has developed into a mightily impressive and consistent global campaigner and currently sits in 17th place on the world rankings, claimed the biggest win of his blossoming career back in August when he secured a two-stroke triumph in the WGC-Bridgestone Invitational.
Now firmly settled in the game’s upper echelons, it is very much a case of onwards and upwards for the former Irish Open champion. “To win one WGC event was special enough, to win another would be incredible,” said Lowry, who sits in third place on the European Tour’s Race to Dubai standings. “I definitely feel like I’ve taken my game to the next level. I now expect to compete with the best players in the world in the biggest tournaments in the world.”
McIlroy, with two WGC wins on his CV including this season’s Cadillac Matchplay Championship, extended his lead at the head of the Race to Dubai rankings with a share of sixth in last week’s Turkish Airlines Open but with three events still to play in the European Tour’s highly lucrative Final Series, the chasing pack have not given up hope of catching the Northern Irishman.
Spieth, the winner of the first two majors of the season and the current world No 2, bolsters a strong field while Watson will defend the crown he won in thrilling fashion last year when he holed a bunker shot for an eagle at the last to get into a play-off with Tim Clark, then beat the South African with a 25-foot birdie putt at the first extra hole.
Marc Warren, the leading Scot on the world order at No 64, and Florida-based Russell Knox will fly the saltire in the 68-man field.
Meanwhile, ahead of this week’s contest at the Sheshan club, HSBC confirmed that it will continue its sponsorship of the WGC event as well as the Abu Dhabi HSBC Golf Championship on the European Tour and the HSBC Women’s Champions event on the LPGA Tour.
Elsewhere in the Far East, the LPGA circuit’s Asian swing will end with the Toto Japan Classic, a long standing event that the great Annika Sorenstam won five times in a row between 2001 and 2005 during her pomp.
North Berwick’s Catriona Matthew forms part of a strong field this week which also includes the likes of Stacy Lewis, Michelle Wie, Lexi Thompson, Karrie Webb and Paula Creamer.
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