HSBC Champions round-up: Woods solid, Manassero slumps in Shanghai
With neither Francesco Molinari and Lee Westwood giving an inch at the WGC HSBC Champions this week - Molinari eventually bested the Englishman by a stroke - you may have missed some of the other notable action in Shanghai.
What to make of the three other challengers to Lee Westwood's recently claimed status as world No. 1? Tiger Woods has promised more returns to form than Francis Ford Coppola in recent months, and while his latest showing in China wasn't exactly an apocalypse now, nor did the 34-year-old's performance smell like victory this week.
Woods started and finished with four-under-par 68s, but in between those very decent rounds the recently dethroned No. 1 could only finish level par, and then one-over. With few other players delivering outstanding consistency over the past four days, Woods' play was still good enough to seal a tie for sixth place - his first top 10 finish since he finished tied for fourth place at the US Open in June.
That might be encouraging, but there's a disparity between Woods' current performances and his determinedly lofty objectives. Days before the tournament, the 14-time major winner spoke confidently of his belief that he would break Jack Nicklaus's record haul of 18 major wins.
For all the positivity, Woods finished 12 strokes behind winner Molinari on Sunday. He may have been focusing on reworking his swing with new coach Sean Foley, but the man's once-assured putting stroke also looks in need of a refresher. Woods' seemingly foregone conclusion that he will eventually return to a position as best in the world hardly seems a formality, even if he's improving.
Whatever, one thing is certain; after failing to win this week, Woods' PGA Tour season has ended without a victory for the first time in his career - a blemish that costs him the chance to break Jack Nicklaus and Arnold Palmer's joint record of 17 straight years with a win (from 1996, Woods has enjoyed victories every year before 2010 - that's 14 on the bounce).
If Woods’ finish was encouraging, neither Phil Mickelson nor Martin Kaymer could recreate their best form this week. That's a more serious conundrum for Mickelson, who hasn't excelled since April when he won the Masters; six bogeys on Saturday were enough to see him plummeting down the leaderboard, and he finished one-over for the tournament.
Kaymer, in contrast, is many people's idea of a more worthy world No. 1 than Lee Westwood, with four wins already this year including a major win with his victory at the PGA Championship. But whatever the German's merits, Westwood was comfortably his superior this week, the 25-year-old finishing tied for 31st place yesterday.
Like Mickelson, the majority of Kaymer's problems came on Saturday, when he racked up five bogeys and a double on the 18th. After a momentous year in which Kaymer has surely achieved more than he dared dream, the man from Dusseldorf may just have hit a wall as the season gears up for its climax in Dubai in three weeks.
Italian wunderkind Matteo Manassero also discovered that top level golf isn't all sunshine and lollipops this week. The 17-year-old had already been earmarked as a star of the future thanks to his success at the British Amateur Championship in 2009, not to mention a run at the Open last year where he finished tied for 13th place.
After going professional back in May of this year, Manassero notched up his first win on the European Tour earlier this year - a performance that granted him an invite to last week's event in China, though Manassero had to scramble around in order to procure a visa at such late notice. After a dismal round on Saturday, the lad will no doubt be wishing his request had gone unrequited.
Manassero finished five-over for the tournament yesterday, after another dreadful Saturday that saw the teenager card a gut-churning sequence of double bogey, triple bogey, and three bogeys on the bounce between 14th and 18th.
That made for an eventual finish of nine-over-par, an ugly score to be certain, though perhaps one that can serve as a useful reminder. Just because you think you know how to win, that doesn't mean you forget how to lose. Even Tiger Woods has learned that lesson this year.
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