Lee Westwood and Luke Donald fill the top two places in the world rankings today because of what they have done in Asia and America respectively recently – but for the next two weeks they are in Europe and locking horns with each other.
First comes the Volvo World Matchplay Championship, starting tomorrow at Finca Cortesin on Spain’s Costa del Sol, which has been more wet than sunny so far this week.
Westwood, who kicks off against Dane Anders Hansen, is going for a third successive title after wins in Indonesia and Korea.
Donald, whose opening group game is against American Ryan Moore, is trying for a Match Play double after lifting the World Golf Championships version in Arizona in February – the first of seven successive top 10 finishes he has had in the States.
Next week they will be at Wentworth for the BMW PGA Championship and Westwood said: “Hopefully we’ll have a typically balmy British spring-summer, everybody will be in T-shirts and there will be 100,000 people there.
“Next week’s going to be one of the strongest and best fields that I think the PGA Championship has ever had, so if that doesn’t get them out nothing will.
“It’s the first time I think a country has had one and two in the world other than America and it just shows you the state of English and British golf right now.
“We have two Northern Irishmen in the top six, Paul (Casey) at ninth and people like Ian (Poulter) right up there too.”
Graeme McDowell, Rory McIlroy – the two Ulstermen in question – Casey and Poulter are also back in Europe for this fortnight and, with third-ranked Martin Kaymer playing as well, the Match Play has five of the world’s top six and all four current major champions in its 24-man field.
They are competing for a first prize of €800,000 that is second only to the British Open in Europe this year – and any one of Westwood, Donald or Kaymer could be number one on Sunday night.
First they have to negotiate the group stages. Not held last year, the championship returns with a new format in which there are eight groups of three, with the top two in each on Friday night progressing to the knockout stages.
In theory, all 24 players could be involved in sudden death play-offs to decide who goes through if, for instance, they all win one group game and lose the other.
This is McIlroy’s first playing appearance in Europe since his closing 80 in The Masters and McDowell’s first, of course, since he shot 79 when he led The Players Championship into last Sunday’s final round in Florida.
“I sent him a text saying ‘It happens to the best of us’,” said McIlroy with a smile. “It can happen to anyone. He’s a major champion, but it’s tough to finish off tournaments no matter who you are. Tiger made it look so easy for 15 years or whatever.”
All of Woods’ 14 major victories have come with him at least tied for the lead after 54 holes and he had a perfect record until YE Yang beat him at the 2009 US PGA.
Yang and fellow Korean Noh Seung-yul are in the same group as Kaymer, but the best first-day clash on paper is that between US Open champion McDowell and Open champion Louis Oosthuizen.
Eight of the 24, including holder Ross Fisher and Scotland’s 1999 Open champion Paul Lawrie, have to wait until Friday to enter the fray as the eight bottom seeds.
Lawrie qualified through his win – his first on the European Tour for nine years – at the Andalucian Open in March.
Elsewhere, five Irish competitors will line up in the Madeira Islands Open: Gary Murphy, who has received a sponsor’s invitation, will be joined by Michael Hoey, Simon Thornton, Colm Moriarty and Niall Kearney.
THE FORMAT
Twenty four players are divided into eight groups of three based on world rankings, with two points for a win and one for a halved match.
Thursday : Top two seeds in each group play each other, matches starting at 11.05am.
Friday : Bottom seed in each group plays the second seed, then the top seed, matches starting 6.45am. Top two in each group progress to last 16, with ties on points settled either by their head-to-head result or by sudden-death play-off.
Saturday morning : Runner-up C v Winner F (Match 1); Winner C v Runner-up F (Match 2); Runner-up B v Winner G (Match 3); Winner B v Runner-up G (Match 4); Winner D v Runner-up E (Match 5); Winner D v Runner-up E (Match 6); Winner Group A v Runner-up H (Match 7); Winner Group H v Runner-up Group H (Match 8).
Saturday afternoon : Winner Match 1 v Winner Match 2; Winner Match 3 v Winner Match 4; Winner Match 5 v Winner Match 6; Winner Match 7 v Winner Match 8.
Sunday : Semi-finals and final.
Prize money : Winner €798,000, runner-up €420,000, losing semi-finalists €220,000, losing quarter-finalists €115,00, last 16 losers €90,000, last in group €70,000.
