Results tagged “zhanglianwei”

Already properly leaked, rumored and reported, the International Federation of PGA Tours made it official Tuesday morning at a press conference at the Shangri-La Hotel in Pudong: Shanghai's HSBC Champions golf tournament has been elevated to World Golf Championship status. To many in the golf world, this immediately makes the HSBC event, which has called Shanghai home since its 2005 debut, the most prestigious golf tournament outside of the United States and the United Kingdom. That China — which opened its first golf course in 1984 and currently has no professional golfers in the global top 100 — has been chosen as the locale for such an event speaks volumes about China's role in the current global marketplace. It's also a strong indicator that golf's governing bodies realize globalization, with Asia being the primary focus, is the key to the sport's survival in an increasingly harsh economic environment.

For those of you who can't afford tickets for the pricey European Tour golf tournament going on this weekend at Shanghai's Sheshan Golf Club, the event's official website is live-blogging with hourly updates. You can follow the leaderboard here. Swede Henrik Stenson (65) currently owns a one-stroke lead over four big names: defending champ Phil Mickelson, Sergio Garcia, Anthony Kim and Adam Scott. Three Chinese golfers, Liang Wenchong, Zhang Lianwei and Shang Lei, are tied for 29th at 1-under. Tee times for tomorrow will eventually be found here.

If it's possible for three generations of Chinese golf to already exist (modern China didn't get its first course until 1984), they will all be proudly on display in the third round of the US$2.3 million BMW Asian Open, a European Tour event, today at Shanghai's Tomson Golf Club in Pudong. Forty-two-year-old Zhang Lianwei, the trailblazer among Chinese pros, shares the lead at 5-under with Robert-Jan Derksen of the Netherlands, one stroke clear of Northern Ireland's Darren Clarke. Liang Wenchong, 29, China's current No. 1 and the 2007 Asian Tour money leader, is tied for sixth, three strokes off the lead, along with teenager Hu Mu, a Florida-based, David Leadbetter-coached amateur who will enroll at the University of Florida this fall. And just one stroke back of that group, at 1-under, you'll find big Li Chao, 28, the top player on China's domestic circuit, the Omega China Tour.