Tiger, Tiger, burning bright ... ish

His feet had hardly hit the tarmac after a long flight from the US to Shanghai and Tiger Woods was off to the Sheshan International Golf Course for a quick nine holes. The man doesn’t know when to stop!

But he did stop -- came to a grinding halt, in fact -- at yesterday’s press conference for the HSBC Champions golf tournament, to be held in Shanghai this week. Tiger looked and sounded like he’d hit a brick wall by the time he walked out to face the media at the Pudong Shangri-La early last night.

Shanghaiist was there and managed to ask the world number one a few questions, all of which he answered with politeness and brevity, but with the distinct demeanour of a man whose body clock is telling him it’s 3.30am in the morning and he really should be deeply asleep.

The lengthy distances that American golfers have to travel to play in this corner of the globe is no doubt one of the main reasons why the US has only one representative -- Tiger himself -- in the field for the HSBC Champions. Not even the lure of Asia’s richest ever golf tournament was enough to entice the likes of Michelson, Daly and Furyk to come to China. Mind you, Top 50 golfers hardly need the money.

But it’s still an impressive line-up that will take to the tee on Thursday morning, including Vijay Singh, Colin Montgomery and someone who Shanghaiist will be watching with great interest, China’s 16-year-old prodigy Hu Mu.

Tiger mentioned last night that he’d already met the teenager and wished him well for the tournament. But we’re not sure how much that meant to Mu: he apparently wants to be “the next Retief Goosen.” Go figure.