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World’s Leading Players Ready For Volvo World Match Play Championship

May 17, 2011 | Filed Under: General News   Share

The Volvo World Match Play Championship returns to the European Tour schedule for the first time since 2009 and marks only the second occasion that the tournament is being played away from its long time home of Wentworth Club in Surrey, England.  This year’s event is being held at the Finca Cortesin Golf Club in Andalucia, Spain, the same venue as the 2009 Championship.

“The World Match Play Championship is a fantastic event and was always one of my favorites,” said 5-time champion Gary Player.  “The round-robin match play format really puts pressure on you to at least halve your early matches.  If you lose it is tough to make a comeback because of the quality of your opponents.  When you play against the best in the world you better be on your game, or you will be going home early,” he added.

The World Match Play Championship has a long and storied history beginning in 1964 with Arnold Palmer defeating UK native Neil Coles.  Golf legends Gary Player (5), Jack Nicklaus (1), Arnold Palmer (2), Seve Ballesteros (5) and Nick Faldo (2) have all have all hoisted the trophy, several of them on multiple occasions.  The player with the most wins with seven is Ernie Els and he is the only player to ever win three titles in a row which he did on two different occasions (1994-1996 and 2002-2004).

The field of 24 players will be drawn into eight groups of three.  Group matches will be played on Thursday and Friday with the top two players in each group progressing to the knock-out stage.  The quarter-finals will be played on Saturday and semi-finals and final, played on Sunday.  All matches will be contested over 18 holes of traditional match play.

The field line-up is as follows:

Ross Fisher (defending champion) Lee Westwood, Luke Donald, Martin Kaymer, Graeme McDowell, Rory McIlory, Paul Casey, Charl Schwartzel, Ian Poulter, Miguel Angel Jimenez, Alvaro Quiros, Francesco Molinari, Y.E. Yang, Louis Oosthuizen, Ryan Moore, Retief Goosen, Anders Hansen, Nicolas Colsaerts, Jhonattan Vegas, Seung-yul Noh, Aaron Baddeley, Johan Edfors, Soren Kjeldsen and Paul Lawrie.

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