Volvo World Match Play Championship to feature the strongest field of its history
This week’s Volvo World Match Play Championship, at the scenic Finca Cortesín Golf Club in Andalucía, will be host to one of the strongest field of its 46-year-old history. All four major champions, strengthened by five of the top six players of the Official
World Golf Rankings, will be poised for the top slot in the €3.4-million event.
The format of the tournament has been slightly altered by the European Tour management and the 24 strong field of contenders will be divided into eight groups of three players each for the knock-out stage of the tournament. Top player from each group will
proceed to the quarter final of the event. The new format has been carefully charted out to ensure thrilling sport to the spectators on the weekend.
Leading the field is none other than World number one Lee Westwood himself, who happens to be a huge fan of the new format. The 38-year-old Englishman is coming out of a splendid season across the world, after he won the Indonesian Masters followed by the
Ballantines Championship in Korea to regain his world number one spot from Kaymer. Westwood has also won the World Match Play title in 2000 at Wentworth.
“I played the new Volvo World Match Play Championship at Finca Cortesin in 2009 and found the facilities to be truly world class, and the new ‘Champions League’ format is exciting,” said the Westwood. “This year, with an increased field of 24 of the best
players in the world, the Volvo World Match Play Championship is back to its very best and is a credit to The European Tour.”
Englishman Luke Donald, who has moved to world number two after his tied for fourth finish in last week’s Players Championship at TPC Sawgrass, will be eyeing the top slot with his considerable experience of the Match Play format. Donald has overtaken Martin
Kaymer for the second spot in the world ranking and has performed brilliantly since the start of the season when he won the WGC Accenture Match Play title in Arizona. He also lost the Heritage on the PGA Tour last month on a tight playoff.
World number three Kaymer, number five Graeme McDowell and world number 6 Rory McIlroy, will also be among the competitors. Kaymer is visibly delighted to return to familiar turf and has just closed the Players Championship in the Top 20.
“I can’t wait to return to Spain to play in the Volvo World Match Play Championship as I am hoping to do much better than I did in my debut in 2009,” said Kaymer.
McDowell is returning to the European Tour after a long streak of events in the US. He played on the tour last October as part of the European Team, which won the Ryder Cup after McDowell’s stellar performance in the singles, followed by Alfred Dunhill Links
Championship.
Rest of the star-studded field comprises of renowned players from 14 nationalities including Johan Edfors, Anders Hansen, Miguel Angel Jiménez, Søren Kjeldsen and Paul Lawrie, US PGA Tour winners Ryan Moore, Jhonattan Vegas, Aaron Baddeley, Retief Goosen,
Y.E Yang, Alvaro Quiros, and the Korean Young gun Seung-yul Noh.
The winner will collect a cheque of €800,000 out of the total purse.
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