The Punter / Steven Rawlings / 06 November 2011 /

Classy Kaymer secures Shanghai success with a storming late run of birdies...

After six straight pars, Martin Kaymer holed-out for birdie from a bunker on the 7th. It was the start of quite a run; he birdied nine of the last 12 holes, shooting 29 on the back-nine, to comfortably win the WGC-HSBC Champions in Shanghai by three shots.

My Bets

It was a bit of a nearly week. Two of my pre-event selections, Paul Casey and Louis Oosthuizen, threatened seriously over the weekend and they both traded below [6.0], but they both ultimately came up short.

This was a fantastic event but I didn't get to trade it as I'd have liked to. In an ideal world I could sleep in the day and enjoy these night-shift events to the full but that just isn't possible I'm afraid, so I've made a conscious decision not to get too involved with these middle-of-the-night events. As a consequence it wasn't an expensive week, merely a disappointing one.

Players to follow

The challenge Tour's final event of the season - the Apulia San Domenico Grand Final was played out this weekend and we now know the top-20 players that have qualified for the European Tour next season.

Italian Andrea Pavin edged out Tommy Fleetwood by a shot to take the title and the pair also finished first and second on the final rankings, with the Englishman topping the list. They'll both be a real force in 2012 and they'll be worth keeping an eye on.

Player to swerve

I'm really disappointed that Adam Scott didn't do the right thing and sack Steve Williams after his unforgivable language over the weekend. It would have been so refreshing to see someone in the world of sport to stand up against racism boldly.

I honestly think he'd have gained worldwide praise if he'd have come out and condemned Williams immediately and it was a real opportunity to show how unacceptable such behaviour is. Instead we've had to listen to him, and Graeme McDowell, make pathetic excuses for Williams when the bottom line is, it simply isn't excusable.

I can't see the distraction of this story going away anytime soon. He performed tardily over the weekend and he'll have his work cut out next week to concentrate on his game. Scott is the favourite to win the Australian Open and guess who's the second favourite? I wonder whether the organisers will still pair Scott with Tiger Woods over the first two days - something I 'm sure they would have been planning, but hardly fair on Woods now.

It won't really matter whether they do or don't, the fact that they're playing in the same event, so soon after Williams' formidable faux pas, will guarantee the presence of plenty of press and I can't see it being any easier for Scott when they get to the States.

I suspect this will run and run and eventually Scott and Williams will be forced to part company anyway. In the meantime I can see Scott's game suffering and he's well worth avoiding.

What have we learnt for next year?

It's not easy to work out exactly what to look for stats-wise for this event. I wrote in last year's De-Brief that driving accuracy was more important than length at Sheshan International and it was Oosthuizen's strong long game (both his accuracy and to a lesser extent his power) that led me to consider him carefully, so I'll again look at strong drivers but by some distance the most important facet this week was putting. The players give themselves many birdie chances here and the contrast between Oosty, who putted poorly, and Kaymer, who made just about everything he looked at, was stark. But how can we predict who's going to be rolling his potato well that particularly week? The simple answer is you can't, so maybe we should concentrate on the in-running trends developing...

Kaymer may well have finished with a late rattle today, and five back is the most any winner of any World Golf Championship has come from to win, but he was actually on the scene from the get-go and he was inside the top-ten at the close of play on each day. Phil Mickelson is still the only player to win after shooting a first round in the 70's and despite today's result I still think in the fullness of time it will prove to be a hard place to win from off the pace.

The Race to Dubai moves onto Singapore for the Barclays Singapore Open very early on Thursday and there's also the aforementioned Australian Open, which will start even earlier. I'll preview both tomorrow.

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