Chongqing Poly Golf Club will play host to the first Shankai China Classic presented by IDG as 36 of the top 45 players on the European Challenge Tour Rankings prepare to tee it up in the opening event of the season-ending Final Swing.
Encompassing four tournaments – the others being the Foshan Open, National Bank of Oman Golf Classic and the Dubai Festival City Challenge Tour Grand Final hosted by Al Badia Golf Club – this exciting climax to the season will go a long way in deciding who will earn their place for The 2015 Race to Dubai.
Byeong-hun An is fourth in the Rankings and already assured of a maiden sojourn on The European Tour next term, but as the highest ranked player in the field he will no doubt be seen as one of the men to beat as the race for the top 15 gathers pace.
The Korean, who won for the first time at the Rolex Trophy this summer, will be joined by fellow tournament winners Mark Tullo, Jake Roos, Oliver Farr and Antonio Hortal in Chongqing, all of whomare currently in position to graduate come season’s end.
Plenty of players are queuing up just behind though, with the first man on the outside looking in – the 16thplaced Englishman Steven Brown – at the head of a list of top talent also set to play in the Chinese city.
Cyril Bouniol heads into the event at 18thon the Rankings fresh from his wedding at home in Texas a couple of weeks ago, and the Frenchman will no doubt hope to ride those good vibrations to another impressive week, as will 2010 Challenge Tour Number One Alvaro Velasco, who is just five places away from a return to the top tier.
Joakim Lagergren (34th) and William Harrold (35th) have both won this season but lie someway down the list, which acts as evidence of the strength in depth of the tour in 2014. They will hope to replicate the form that yielded wins in Northern Ireland and Belgium respectively, as will Pierre Relecom, who also picked up a maiden title this season at the Swiss Challenge presented by Association Suisse de Golf.
Matthew Fitzpatrick has continued to impress on the Challenge Tour in the limited starts he has made so far, and the Sheffield native will tee it up for the seventh time in China off the back of his best finish on the second tier, a tie for seventh at the EMC Golf Challenge Open 2014 in Rome.
With a prize fund of $350,000 up for grabs, whatever happens this week, it is sure to have a considerable effect on the overall make-up of the Rankings come the season’s end.
