The Field
Headlining this week’s field are six Major champions including Danny Willett, Y.E Yang, Graeme McDowell, Trevor Immelman, Paul Lawrie and José María Olazábal. It will be a first appearance for Olazábal since the 2015 Masters Tournament and the 23-time European Tour champion is sure to draw a large crowd.
Defending champion Fitzpatrick will have a battle on his hands with the likes of Sweden’s Alex Noren, a two-time winner on the European Tour in 2016, US Open Championship runner-up Shane Lowry, and the most recent winner of the European Tour, countryman Tyrrell Hatton, who carded a 62 course record-equalling at St Andrews on his way to securing his maiden European Tour title.
The Added Extras
Stars of the European Tour will go head-to-head under floodlights in a fast-paced one-hole knockout contest - the Hero Challenge - on the Tuesday evening before the event kicks off.
Featuring eight players, in seven quick-fire head-to-head straight knockout matches, the last man standing will be crowned champion, with the entire contest concluded in less than an hour.
With the likes of Donald, Sullivan, Noren, and Lowry getting amongst the action, fan favourite Andrew ‘Beef’ Johnston will be testing his skills under the lights with Austrian Bernd Wiesberger, Frenchman Alexander Levy and India’s Jeev Milkha Singh. Adding to the action is a one-hole celebrity shootout featuring TV personality Piers Morgan, singer Brian McFadden and cricketers Kevin Pietersen and Shane Warne.
Also on the agenda is the ISPS Handa Pressure Putt Showdown, as The Grove’s practice putting green is transformed into a lively arena with four teams, each made up of a professional and a high-profile celebrity, take on each other in the test of skill and nerve.
Did you know?
• The event was first staged in 1946, ending in a tie between Bobby Locke and Jimmy Adams. Both recorded 72 hole totals of 286. It remains the only time in the event’s history the championship was tied.
• Golfing history was made in 1967 when Tony Jacklin won at Royal St George’s. His final round of 64 included a hole-in-one at the par three 16th. It was the first time an ace was witnessed on British television.
• Two months after winning the 1988 Masters Tournament at Augusta National, Sandy Lyle made it a unique double with victory in the British Masters, claiming the £41,660 first prize. The Scotsman became the first British player to pass £1 million in European Tour Official Career Earnings.
• The final round of the 2000 event saw Roger Chapman and Alastair Forsyth paired together over Woburn’s Dukes Course. Both golfers recorded holes-in-one, Forsyth at the second and Chapman six holes later at the eighth. This represented the last time on the European Tour that two players in the same group both had holes-in-one in the same round.
• There are 12 players competing this week in the British Masters supported by Sky Sports who played in the 2006 WGC – American Express Championship at The Grove: Luke Donald, Trevor Immelman, Thongchai Jaidee, David Howell, José Maria Olazábal, Robert Karlsson, Johan Edfors, Lee Westwood, Simon Dyson, Thomas Bjørn, Anthony Wall and Grégory Bourdy.
• To highlight the quality of the field, there are six Major Champions, three European Tour Number Ones, two World Number Ones, 83 European Tour winners and 20 Ryder Cup players competing this week.
• To highlight the quality of the winners of the British Masters, there have been 13 different Major Champions who have claimed this crown: Bobby Locke (1946 and 1954), Max Faulkner (1951), Peter Thomson (1961 and 1968), Tony Jacklin (1967 and 1973), Bob Charles (1972), Bernhard Langer (1980), Greg Norman (1981 and 1982), Ian Woosnam (1983 and 1994), Lee Trevino (1985), Seve Ballesteros (1986 and 1991), Sandy Lyle (1988), Sir Nick Faldo (1989) and Justin Rose (2002).
• Should Matthew Fitzpatrick make a successful defence of his title he won in 2015, he would become the youngest Englishman to win the same European Tour event in back-to-back years, aged 22 years and 45 days. The current English record is held by Sir Nick Faldo, aged 23 years and 311 days, when he won his second consecutive PGA Championship in 1981.
