The regular season on the European tour is coming to an end and, once we are done with this week’s Hong Kong Open and next week’s Perth International, only the guys ranked high in the Race to Dubai, or the world rankings, will have a chance to play the Final Series events and qualify for the DP World Tour Championship in Dubai.
Rory McIlroy is on top of the Race to Dubai by more than £3 million (Dh17.72 million) at the moment, and I really do not foresee anyone spoiling his victory march. I think he is playing a couple of Final Series events before Dubai and, with no cut in all of them, even a woefully out-of-form Rory is going to accumulate more money. And, given how well he has been playing since the middle of the year, I am sure he will actually be contending in most events.
Rory will be sorely missed at the Fanling Golf Club in Hong Kong this week, not only because he has always played well here, but also because he has gone on record several times and said that this is one of his favourite golf courses in the world.
I will have to completely agree with Rory there. Fanling is a typical, old-style, tree-lined golf course. It is not a very long golf course, but it makes up with clever design with a number of brilliant short par-4s that keep asking you questions from the tee to the the green.
I heard from some of the members last year say that there is a possibility the government might not renew the lease of the land when the present one runs out in 2020. Some of them felt that the Hong Kong Golf Club would be shifted to a new location and the present land would be used for some other purpose. That really would be a shame as I don’t think a golf course can be replicated in any other site. Fanling really is the pride of Hong Kong and I hope it will be preserved for many, many more years to come.
In the absence of Rory, Miguel Angel Jimenez will be the man a majority will favour, just because the Spaniard has won the tournament so many times in the past and always seems to do well here. And then there is Nicolas Colsaerts, who came so close to shooting a 59 at the Portugal Masters last week before settling for a 60.
There are two concurrent events on the European Tour this week — the other being the Volvo World Match Play at London Golf Club.
The announcement from Volvo that they will not be renewing their sponsorship for the Match Play and the Volvo Golf Champions is an extremely sad one for us European Tour members. Volvo have supported our Tour from almost day one, and it has been a superb 25-year association. But they are still going to be a part of the Tour as title sponsors of the China Open and I am happy about that.
— Jeev Milkha Singh is a four-time champion on the European Tour
