Warren gets chance in China

Scotland’s Marc Warren will find himself playing alongside the world’s top golfers next month after booking his place in the HSBC Champions Tournament in China by winning the 2005 Challenge Tour.

The 24-year-old topped the European Tour’s second-tier competition after the season-ending event in Italy at the weekend and that feat has earned him the right to join the field at the Sheshan International Golf Club in Shanghai, which includes world number one Tiger Woods.

Having won £70,000 (€103,000) on the Challenge Tour this year – which earned him his card for the full European Tour next year – Warren, from Cambuslang in Lanarkshire, will compete for a prize fund of £2.9m (€4.28m) in China.

“Teeing it up at the HSBC Champions Tournament is going to be pretty special when you consider that the best players in the world are going to be there,” he said.

“With guys like Tiger and Vijay Singh there it is going to be a brilliant chance to see what the difference is between players at that level and the level I have been playing at regularly for the past few years.”