Golden memories will be rolling through the mind of Jose Maria Olazábal when he returns to town for the 2011 UBS Hong Kong Open.
The now 45-year-old Spaniard was a winner here back in 2001 when he birdied the final three holes, hitting a stunning five-iron approach on the last to within inches to help seal a one-stroke victory over Sweden’s Henrik Bjornstad. It was breath-taking stuff – and that sublime five-iron – which was played from a decidedly dodgy lie in the right-hand rough at Fanling's fabulous closer – has become the stuff of legend.
That victory came at a time when Olazábal was among the dominant forces on the fairways of the world, with two Masters Green Jackets already hanging in his wardrobe back home in Hondarribia thanks to victories at Augusta National in 1994 and 1995. In total, the Ryder Cup star has 31 tournament victories to his name, and it came as no surprise when he was inducted into the World Golf Hall of Fame two years ago.
So Olazábal can be excused a few moments of reflection once play gets under way on December 1 but when they do come, rest assured they will be fleeting because the fiercely competitive Spaniard will still be firmly focused on the business at hand.
First – and foremost – there will be his own chances in a tournament that this year includes Olazábal among a slew of former winners in its field. And then there’s the little matter of the Spaniard’s role as Europe’s Ryder Cup captain.
This year’s UBS Hong Kong Open boasts eight of the 12 European players who so memorably clinched a 14½ to 13½ victory over the Americans at Celtic Manor, Wales, back in 2010, alongside Olazábal, who acted as non-playing vice-captain, and, of course, that man Colin Montgomerie, who skippered the team to victory. Make no mistake, the events which are scheduled to unfold at the next staging of the famous biennial event – at the Medinah Country Club, Chicago, next September – will from this moment on be never far from the minds of all those players and from those of a great many more Europeans who missed out on selection last time around as well.
Olazábal made his Ryder Cup debut as a 21-year-old in 1987 when the Europeans famously grabbed victory on American soil for the very first time and he has long claimed that taking part in the competition is one of the greatest honours a golfer can attain.
While there is a long way to go before Olazábal names his team, for those players gathered here in Hong Kong the opportunity presents itself –early – to get themselves noticed, a notion not lost for a moment on the reigning champion Ian Poulter.
“First things first, I want to win again in Hong Kong – as players we go into every tournament wanting to win. But for the next 12 months the Ryder Cup will be at the back of our minds too,” said Poulter. “You want to make sure you get enough points to get on the team because for a golfer there is nothing quite like that experience.”
Alongside the Englishman, there’s Rory McIlroy, Padraig Harrington, Ross Fisher, Miguel Angel Jiménez (see page 40 ), brothers Francesco and Edoardo Molinari and Peter Hanson from the 2010 Ryder Cup team renewing their acquaintances at Fanling – as well Montgomerie. Hotting things up, too, are the likes of the in-form Justin Rose and young Italian gun Matteo Manassero.
Poulter arrives in Hong Kong fresh from teaming with best friend Rose at the Omega Mission Hills World Cup in Hainan and before that at the HSBC Champions in Shanghai he showed flashes of the type of form that took him to a one-stroke victory over Simon Dyson and Manassero last year, and saw him in May claim the Volvo World Match Play Championship in Spain. Last year the Englishman flirted with a 59 on the second day at Fanling – not even a slight earth tremor while he was on the 14th could shake his focus – before settling for a 10-under 60 that set Poulter well and truly on course for the title.
And while Poulter freely admits to enjoying time spent out on the fairways with Rose, he’s not about to let his mate in on any inside information about that historic Composite Course at The Hong Kong Golf Club, as Rose makes his debut here in Hong Kong. In a recent interview, the 31-year-old Rose revealed he had asked Poulter about what to expect once he steps out here – but any answers to those questions had been politely declined.
Not that Rose really needs too much assistance, given his run of form over the past two seasons. The South African-born, Orlando-based Englishman has won three times on the PGA Tour since the start of 2010 – picking up the Memorial, the AT&T National and the BMW Championship. Rose has collected the winner’s cheque now 10 times since turning pro in 1998, following his sensational fourth-placed finish at the Open Championship as a 17-year-old amateur.
Rose was left out of the reckoning for the 2010 Ryder Cup – quite controversially, too, according to some – and so from Hong Kong onwards he’ll no doubt be looking to maintain the kind of form that makes a repeat of that situation unimaginable.
Another former winner returning to Hong Kong is Harrington, the three-time major champion who claimed the title back in 2003 and has over the years become a mainstay of the European’s Ryder Cup team. The 40-year-old has another added incentive to perform well here as he goes in to the event well off the pace in the Race to Dubai standings, while it is only the top 60 who are given an invitation to take part in the season-ending Dubai World Championship presented by DP World, which takes place a week after our event.
For McIlroy, 2011 presents an opportunity to get the job done in a city he loves and over a course that by now must feel like a second home as the Northern Irishman has been coming here since his days as a junior.
Back in town now as a major winner – thanks to his stunning eight-stroke victory in the US Open back in June – McIlroy will be looking to set the record straight this year after he finished as runner-up behind Lin Wen-tang in 2008, falling victim to one of golf’s great recoveries as the Taiwanese golfer pulled off a miracle shot in the sudden-death play-off.
Last year, McIlroy finished sixth, four strokes behind Poulter, and the 22-year-old arrives in town fresh from a victory October’s Shanghai Masters and an equal fourth in the HSBC Champions. That result saw McIlroy move into a career-high second in the world rankings, behind England’s Luke Donald, and is sure to have him full of confidence come tee-off time.
Italy’s Molinari brothers – Francesco and Edoardo – are another pair heading to Hong Kong fresh from World Cup duties, where they were set to defend their title, and both will again also be hoping to play a part as the Ryder Cup unfolds next year.
The 28-year-old Francesco has come close on two occasions in Hong Kong, first when part of the 2008 play-off threesome with McIlroy and Lin that ended with such drama, and then again the next year when he came joint-third behind Grégory Bourdy. Victory at the WGC-HSBC Champions and a tied-sixth at the Dubai World Championship in 2010 marked a career year for the Italian which included his Ryder Cup debut.
Elder brother Edoardo also had a breakthrough year in 2010. There was the Ryder Cup win, of course, and there were also victories on the European Tour at the Scottish Open at Loch Lomond and at the Johnnie Walker Championship at Gleneagles. The big occasion is certainly nothing new for Edoardo – back in 2005 he became the first European in 95 years to claim the US Amateur crown.
Two more veterans of the 2010 Ryder Cup campaign heading to Hong Kong are the Swede Peter Hanson and Englishman Ross Fisher.
Hanson was a fifth-place finisher here back in 2007 (behind Jiménez) and has now won 10 times on tour, picking up trophies from the Iberdola Open Cala Millor Mallorca and the Czech Open in 2010. The 34-year-old will be hoping he’s right in the mix at this year’s UBS Hong Kong Open, as will Fisher who showed the world in no uncertain terms just how much talent he has when he took the 2010 3 Irish Open with an astonishing 18-under 266 for the tournament.
And then there is Monty. Long a regular on the fairways at Fanling, the Scot took the title in 2006, battling through blustery conditions on the final day for a one-stroke victory over South African James Kingston, who famously double-bogeyed the last hole. Montgomerie now has 40 tournament wins through a celebrated career which was crowned by his captaincy in last year’s Ryder Cup success.
New Hole for Composite Course
Fanling has been the venue for Hong Kong's national Open since the inaugural tournament in 1959, making it one of the most venerable layouts in championship golf today. Indeed, only Augusta National, home of the Masters Tournament, can claim to have hosted more professional events.
Naturally enough, the holes earmarked for play during the Hong Kong Open have changed over the years – with 54 of them, the Hong Kong Golf Club has plenty to choose from – but this year marks the first time that the newly remodelled 17th hole of the New Course (pictured) will be used during the championship.
The hole – which will be played as the 15th on the Composite Course – is a stout 180-yard par-three designed by architect Martin Hawtree, featuring an imaginatively contoured green surrounded on three sides by five deep bunkers. Hawtree has plenty of experience in such matters; the Englishman has worked with the R&A on numerous occasions in setting up the classic British links courses for Open Championship play. He is also the man responsible for designing Donald Trump's much publicised course on the Aberdeenshire coast, which is slated to open in 2012.
With the ushering in of the new hole, one had to be struck from the Composite Course scorecard – and that misfortune was bestowed on the second hole of the Eden Course, a shortish par-three that also played as the second hole during the championship in recent past Opens.
The overall course yardage has increased slightly to 6,730 yards, with par remaining as 70.–Alex Jenkins
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