HSBC CHAMPIONS: World-class golf returns to China this week, as an elite field will divide up a whopping $9.5 million in prize money at the WGC-HSBC Champions. So if you’ve ever wondered how to get all four major champions and 19 Ryder Cuppers to fly across the world for a one-off event in late October, now you know: you put together a purse that’s roughly equivalent to the GDP of a small island country.
Sheshen International Golf Club will serve as the host venue for the seventh time in the past eight years, and it’s produced quite a list of winners, names like Phil Mickelson, Martin Kaymer, Bubba Watson, and Dustin Johnson. Scotsman Russell Knox triumphed last year, firing a final-round 68 to finish the week at 20-under par, two shots ahead of American Kevin Kisner. It was the first significant professional victory for Knox, who has since followed it up with a win at the Travelers Championship in August, and it marked the fourth time in the past five years that the winner of this event has reached the 20-under plateau. In other words, we can expect to see some birdies this week.
Sheshen is a par-72 that measures just over 7,200 yards, so it’s certainly not long by Tour standards, and its four par-5s and one drivable par-4 provide the players with plenty of scoring opportunities. The wind and rain that has been forecasted for this week could have some effect on the scoring, however, and there have been reports that the course is in slightly worse condition than in years past. Still, we know what to expect from Sheshen: this is a quintessential ball-strikers layout that tends to produce winners with well-rounded tee-to-green games. Distance and accuracy are rewarded, and par-5 scoring has been a predictive stat in this tournament.
Here are this week’s selections:
WIN MARKET
Recommendations to BACK (odds in parenthesis)
Hideki Matsuyama (24.0)- Matsuyama has quietly returned to form since slumping a bit over the summer, as he followed a T5 at the Tour Championship with a runner-up finish at last week’s CIMB Classic, where he strung together four sub-70 rounds at TPC Kuala Lumpur and made a late charge with a bogey-free 66 on Sunday. His record at Sheshen is uninspiring, but he’s one of the world’s best ball-strikers and the course is a good statistical fit for him, so he’s a top candidate to break through. There’s also the fact that Sheshen was designed by the same architects (R. Nelson/N. Haworth) who built the aforementioned TPC Kuala Lumpur, which at the very least gives us another reason to suspect that Matsuyama’s fortunes in this event are about to improve. I’ve got a feeling he’s going to be a fixture on the first page of the leaderboard this week, and at better than 20/1 he’s my favorite bet on the board.
Bernd Wiesberger (54.0)- Wiesberger has been playing great golf in recent weeks, finishing 7th or better in each of his past four starts dating back to last month’s KLM Open. The young Austrian currently ranks in the top-15 on the European Tour in both driving accuracy and putts per GIR, so it’s only a matter of time before he ends his 15-month dry spell with a victory. It could easily come this week, considering he seemed to like Sheshen in his debut appearance last year, breaking par in all four rounds and finishing 17th. A player like Wiesberger tends to get overlooked in a field of this quality, but he’s playing as well as anyone right now and could very easily be the man left holding the trophy on Sunday afternoon.
Branden Grace (78.0)- Unlike Wiesberger, Grace isn’t in the midst of a hot stretch, but he showed very encouraging signs in Malaysia last week, where he closed with a pair of 69s to finish 33rd. We’ve seen his form rapidly improve in the past, and he’s developed a reputation for exceeding expectations at important times. The bigger the tournament, the better Grace seems to play… and this week certainly qualifies as “big.” Plus, Sheshen sets up great for him, as evidenced by his 5th-place finish in this event last year. As longshots go, Grace is definitely a live one.
TOURNAMENT MATCH BETS
Rory McIlroy (1.82) vs. Dustin Johnson (1.91)
The two headliners in the field have both had tremendous success in this event, with McIlroy finishing 11th or better in all six of his appearances and Johnson adding a 5th-place showing last year to his win in 2013. It’s impossible to say anything negative about DJ considering his tremendous year, but I just get the sense that McIlroy has really honed things in over the past six weeks and is currently in full bloom, so to speak, while Johnson may not have quite the same edge that he had a couple of months ago. Recommendation: McIlroy at 1.82
Alexander Noren (1.91) vs. Thomas Pieters (1.82)
Pieters is the darling of the European golf world after his tremendous performance at Hazeltine, but his play since then– T50 at the Dunhill and T31 at the Portugal Masters– suggests that he may be suffering from a post-Ryder Cup hangover. Noren, meanwhile, has won three times in his last 8 starts and managed to find the top-20 in this event last year. The buzz around Pieters has created an opportunity here. Recommendation: Noren at 1.91
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