DID YOU KNOW – VOLVO CHINA OPEN
• Defending champion, Alexander Levy will be aiming to become the first player to successfully defend the Volvo China Open, after claiming the trophy in 2014.
• Alexander Levy became the second youngest French player to win on The European Tour, aged 23 when he won the event 12 months ago.(The youngest is José-Filipe Lima who was 22 when he won the 2004 Aa St Omer Open and was then playing under the French flag, although he is now a Portuguese citizen).
• The Volvo China Open will be celebrating its 21st playing this year, having first been contested in 1995, won by Raul Fretes at the Beijing International Golf Club.
• In the 20 previous stagings of the Volvo China Open there have been 20 different winners, from 14 different countries. Australia and England have the most wins with three. For Australia they are: David Gleeson (2002), Scott Strange (2009) and Brett Rumford (2013). For England they are: Ed Fryatt (1998), Simon Dyson (2000) and Paul Casey (Nov 2005 – part of the 2006 European Tour season). The host nation have produced two winners – Chen Jun (1997) and Zhang Lian-wei (2003).
• Venue for the 2015 Volvo China Open is the Tomson Shanghai Pudong Golf Club. The Shanghai venue had previously been the host of the BMW Asian Open between 2004-2008. Tomson will be just the second Chinese course, following Genzon Golf Club, to stage two different official European Tour events.
• The Volvo China Open had the distinction of being the first European Tour event to be played twice in the same season. This occurred in the 2006, firstly played in November 2005, won by Paul Casey and then by Jeev Milkha Singh in April 2006.
• European Tour history was made at the 2013 Volvo China Open. Ye Wo-cheng became the youngest player to compete in a European Tour event, aged just 12 years and 242 days. He broke the record of Guan Tian-lang, who was 13 years and 177 days in this event in 2012.
• A man with fond memories of the Volvo China Open is Nicolas Colaserts. The Belgian claimed his maiden Tour title in this event in 2011. He came very close to making a successful defence in 2012, finishing second. In 2010 he was also finished in the top ten, claiming a tie for eighth. Colsaerts went onto win his second title in another Volvo-sponsored tournament, this time the 2012 Volvo World Match Play Championship. Should he win this week be would become the first player in European Tour history to win his first three European Tour events with the same title sponsor.
• This tournament will be Volvo’s longest equal continuous sponsorship of a professional event, having first put their name to China’s National Open in 1995. This matches the 21 years Volvo sponsored the Volvo Masters, between 1988-2008 inclusive.
• The 2015 season sees Volvo’s 29th consecutive year of European Tour sponsorship. Their first event was the 1987 Volvo Belgian Open.
