Marcel Siem will launch his defence of the BMW Masters crown alongside American Peter Uihlein and Denmark’s Lucas Bjerregaard when play gets under way at Lake Malaren on Thursday morning.
Twelve months ago, Siem dramatically chipped in at the 18th hole to emerge victorious from a sudden-death play-off and claim his fourth European Tour title and the 35 year old German would become the first player to retain the title should he prevail again this week in Shanghai.
With this week representing the final opportunity for players to jump inside the top 60 and with it seize a place in the season-ending DP World Tour Championship, Dubai, Siem is currently ranked 67th in The Race to Dubai and therefore will begin his bid for a good finish and a coveted slot in next week’s field with big-hitting Uihlein and the highly promising Bjerregaard from 1020 local time.
Elsewhere, one of those chasing down long-time leader Rory McIlroy - with the Northern Irishman not in China this week - is England’s Justin Rose, who lies fifth in the season-long ranking with two events left to run.
UBS Hong Kong Open winner Rose needs to finish second or better to be in with a chance of leapfrogging McIlroy into first place heading back to the United Arab Emirates and the Ryder Cup star kicks off his BMW Masters campaign at 1040 with two other men chasing the European Number One slot in South African Branden Grace, who lies sixth, and seventh-placed Bernd Wiesberger.
Meanwhile, in another mouth-watering threeball, WGC-Bridgestone Invitational winner Shane Lowry tees it up alongside two-time 2015 winner and the current Race to Dubai number two Danny Willett plus fourth-placed Louis Oosthuizen.
Willett, who tees off in the final group out on Thursday morning at 1050, is less than 75,000 points behind pace-setter McIlroy and the Englishman knows that a 28th place finish this week on the Jack Nicklaus-designed layout could be enough to overtake his Holywood counterpart at the top of proceedings.
Two former European Number Ones in Henrik Stenson (2013) and Martin Kaymer (2010) hit the links from 0950 with Chinese hero Wu Ashun, while three recent winners in Victor Dubuisson, Kiradech Aphibarnrat and Byeong Hun An are out a little later at 1030.
Rookie of the Year contender Matt Fitzpatrick joins European Open winner Thongchai Jaidee and Irish Open victor Soren Kjeldsen at 1020, swiftly on the heels of a 1010 threeball packed with Ryder Cup pedigree in provocative American Patrick Reed plus Europeans Jamie Donaldson and Ian Poulter.
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