Special Places - Sheshan International Golf Club

A new week has dawned in the world of golf seeing Tiger Woods finally ousted from the number one position after 281 consecutive weeks, with England’s Lee Westwood taking over atop the rankings. In recent months players such as Phil Mickelson, Steve Stricker and this past week Germany’s Martin Kaymer have had the chance to seize the top spot by their play on the golf course. None, however, came close to rising to the challenge, and it was left to Westwood to displace Woods by a process of attrition with both players not competing. Woods can reclaim his crown with a win in the HSBC Champions tournament this week at Sheshan as he seeks his first victory of an unprecedented winless season.

This World Golf Championships event takes place in the western reaches of China’s financial powerhouse Shanghai, close to Sheshan Mountain. Sheshan International Golf Club is 6600 metres long. It plays to a par of 72, has seashore paspalum fairways with bent grass greens and has been the venue of the WGC-HSBC Champions event since 2006.

The course was designed by respected Singapore based golf architects Nelson and Haworth Design who have an office in Shanghai and have designed nearly 10% of all the courses in China, the world’s fastest growing golfing nation. Opened in 2004, Sheshan is a private residential estate 30 minutes from downtown Shanghai and the layout was inspired by Donald Ross’ classic Oak Hill Country Club design in upstate New York. Water is an almost ever-present feature, with streams, interconnecting man-made lakes and a canal, and over 1.5 million cubic metres of earth were moved to create individual valleys and dramatic settings for every hole. With numerous elevation changes for both tee and approach shots together with more than 10,000 trees that are maturing to further frame the holes, the course is rapidly becoming one of the very best in the region. The signature holes are the driveable 265m par 4 16th and the 175m par 3 17th which skirt around a fifty metre, deep rock quarry.

Spectators on the terraces of the palatial clubhouse overlooking the green of the classic risk and reward par 5 18th are likely to see a tussle between defending champion Phil Mickelson and a reinvigorated Tiger Woods, with members of the victorious European Ryder Cup team looking to underline their recent supremacy over their transatlantic rivals.