A date for your 2011 diary?

ONE event that will not be returning to Spain this year is the Volvo World Matchplay Championship at Finca Cortesin. The inaugural event was held in October last year won, ironically enough, by Wentworth local boy  Ross Fisher in its first foray from its spiritual home. Despite being well received by both players and spectators some eyebrows were raised concerning the quality of the field and lack of sponsorship on the regional government’s part. Notable absentees included multiple winner Ernie Els and Padraig Harrington who opted to play in the conflicting Singapore Open instead. In fact, Els went even further choosing the ill-chosen, if remarkably frank remark in this PC age, that it was time to ”push the wheelbarrow out.” i.e they were being paid enormous sums to appear in the Far East.   The new dates from 19 – 22 May have been secured for the following four years and fall a week before one of the European Tour’s flagship events: the BMW PGA Championship. Organisers and sponsors alike are hoping that an event of this stature will attract many of world’s best players to remain on the Old Continent for an extra week. The format has also been modified with the field now numbering twenty four players, comprising eight groups of three.  This will help avoid any dead rubbers as only two players from each group will progress to the last sixteen. My maths make that a total of thirty nine matches to be contested? Prize money has also been increased with the winner guaranteed to land a cool
800,000€ cheque out of a 4 million € purse, guaranteed to be one of the highest pots outside the Majors and Race to Dubai finale. Time to get  your private jet out, Ernie? One question for IMG. Does their personal invitation to star client, Tiger Woods, remain unanswered?

Tags: Championship, Spain, Volvo World Matchplay