WGC - HSBC Champions Preview.

Peter Hanson is chasing down Rory McIlroy

Most of the focus coming into this week, has been about those who are absent. However, the WGC - HSBC Champions deserves much attention in its own right.

As it enters its 8th Edition, it’s fourth as a World Golf Championship, the HSBC has relocated to a new home. Having been previously played at the Sheshan Golf Club in Shanghai, the tournament will be hosted at the Mission Hills Golf Club in Shenzhen. (A course which has hosted three World Cups of Golf).This event provides an opportunity for players to establish their individual status, within the wider context of the game, moving into 2013. With a high number of World Ranking points available, there is a chance for players to ensure of their status inside the Top 50 in the Official World Rankings for the end of the year, which is a position that would earn an invite into the 77th Masters Tournament, at Augusta National, in April. (Something which Geoff Ogilvy, Alex Noren, Jamie Donaldson and Rafael Cabrera-Bello should be very aware of). That’s not to mention the enticing opportunity to win a World Golf Championship, of which there are only four in a season, and are widely presumed to be a stepping stone in terms of becoming a fancied contender in major championships.

Most will reflect on the absence of Rory McIlroy and Tiger Woods,  who played in a lucrative 18-hole match on Monday, and have decided not to take the two hour journey to Shenzhen. Rightly so, given their status and star-power, with the former preferring to spend the week in Bulgaria watching his girlfriend, Caroline Wozniacki,  play tennis, and the latter will end his season at the World Challenge in California.  However, the absence of McIlroy, who has already committed to the next three events on the European Tour, and preferred not to play in, what would have been, a five week stretch of competitive golf, offers a window of opportunity to the other players. Particularly in the wider context of the Race to Dubai.

Peter Hanson, who won the BMW Masters last week, is now €812,572 behind Rory. A victory, at Missions Hills, would take the Swede ahead of McIlroy, and, at very least, Hanson has the opportunity to make this race competitive, as it reaches its closing stretch. As does Justin Rose, who is just slightly behind Hanson on the Money List. Rose, who led the 2007 Order of Merit, is looking for his second WGC title of 2012, having won the Cadillac Championship, at Doral, in March. With just two events left, in Singapore and Hong Kong, before the final showdown in Dubai, Hanson and Rose have an opportunity to make this a truly competitive race.

There are also individual opportunities for redemption this week, with Phil Mickelson, making his first appearance since the Ryder Cup, looking to exorcise the demons of Medinah, with a strong performance, at an event which he has won twice before. Lee Westwood, who will partner Mickelson for the first two rounds alongside Francesco Molinari, will be attempting to end, what has been a largely disappointing second half of the season, on a significant high. It does seem inconceivable, considering the quality and stature of Westwood’s career, that he has, not only, never won a major championship, but he has also never lifted a WGC title. A, no doubt, frustrating statistic that the Englishman will be hoping to correct in Shenzhen.

With significant ramifications in terms of the Race to Dubai, in addition to the prestige of a World Golf Championship, the HSBC will still provide much excitement, despite the absence of two certain gentlemen.

Don’t worry, there is life without Rory and Tiger.