Tour set for exciting start

A first prize of more than £475,000 (€703,427) and the presence of Tiger Woods and Vijay Singh gives the new European Tour season a flying start in Shanghai this week.

The HSBC Champions tournament is the richest golf event staged in Asia, and Woods, Singh and Padraig Harrington have all flown straight from the Tour Championship in America to be part of the 75-strong field.

Europe’s men of the moment Colin Montgomerie and Paul McGinley, meanwhile, are looking to pick up where they left off two weeks ago.

A brilliant October – first, third, eighth and third – gave Montgomerie an eighth Order of Merit crown, while McGinley produced the best performance of his career in winning the Volvo Masters at Valderrama.

The Dubliner was in hospital the following day for a scan on his knee and the news was good.

“It’s my decision whether I have an operation or not and if I do the recovery period won’t be as long as I thought it would be,” said McGinley, who initially feared he could be out for two months.

“I’ll decide what to do after next week’s World Cup. It’s not affected my game all season, but every now and again I get some pain and I need to get to the bottom of it.”

Woods, playing his first tournament in China and rumoured to be receiving more than £1.2million, flew in at 6.30am and by lunchtime had already given a short clinic and played nine holes.

Then it was back to the hotel for some rest, into the city centre for a press conference and an attempt to hit over the river.

Eight Chinese players have been given places in the event and their number one Zhang Lian-Wei, who in April became their first golfer to appear in the Masters, said: “Tiger’s presence has moved China golf forward by 10 years.

“Young Chinese kids who don’t know golf will want to learn the game and hopefully this will help develop golf further.

“I certainly hope more world-class players will continue to play in China as it is only good for the game here.”