Irish ready to take on the world at Mission Hills

Ireland’s Rory McIlroy and Graeme McDowell have been identified as the pair most likely to wrest the title from Sweden’s Robert Karlsson and Henrik Stenson in next week’s World Cup at Mission Hills, China.
McIlroy, the 20-year-old Irish phenomenon, has been looking forward to the week for months. “I so wanted to be playing last year,” said McIlroy, who just missed out on the two-man side for ‘08. “I’ve heard that Mission Hills is going to take my breath away and I can’t wait.”
McIlroy, who is currently battling to win Race to Dubai honours, experiences much the same happy vibes in China as he does in his native Ireland.
“There’s something about China,” he volunteered. “I love the food and I love the spectators. Yes, they can get carried away a bit at times but they’re great as far as I am concerned. They tend to bring out the best in me.”
Earlier this year, McIlroy and McDowell won three times out of four when partnering each other in the GB and Ireland side which defeated the Europeans at the Vivendi Trophy. Yet it was their heroics in the singles which maybe struck the more telling note vis-à-vis their ambitions to unseat Sweden this week.
While McIlroy, playing top, defeated Stenson on the home green, McDowell, out second, had a 16th-hole victory over Karlsson.
“I enjoy playing with G-Mc,” said McIlroy of the pair’s successful partnership. “He’s kept an eye out for me ever since I turned professional. We often go to dinner and we play a lot of practice rounds together. We’re just thoroughly good friends.”
McDowell, for his part, says of Rory, “He’s hugely talented and he’s a pleasure to play with.”
Yet, quietly confident though Ireland might be, it would be impossible for the pair to outdo England’s Ian Poulter and Ross Fisher in this department.
“Ian’s just won and I’ve just won,” said Fisher of that last Sunday in October when the two bagged titles on the same afternoon – Poulter in Singapore and Fisher in the Match-Play championship at Finca Cortesin.
“What so impresses me about Ian is his sheer confidence level,” added Fisher. “He’s massively confident in what he can achieve and I’ve got a touch of that about myself at the moment.”
Where Ireland and England both qualified automatically for this end-of-season spectacular, the Scots (Alistair Forsyth and David Drysdale) and the Welsh (Stephen Dodd and Jamie Donaldson) had to play their way through qualifying. Both countries finished in the top four at the September qualifying event in Estonia.
These two nations will be among the underdogs but, as Dodd has reminded people before, he and Bradley Dredge had not exactly been singled out before they won the coveted World Cup title in 2005.
Three years into its 12-year tenure at China’s Mission Hills, the World Cup of Golf has recovered much of its old stature and romance. Dr David Chu, the Chairman of Mission Hills, has given the event space to rekindle its early ideals along with the impetus to make the most of its unique place in the game’s future.
Dr Chu has a vision for the sport which is entirely in accord with that of the late John Jay Hopkins, the founding father of the World Cup, or Canada Cup as it was known from 1953 to 1966. Hopkins always hoped for rather more than an annual result. He saw golf as “a civilised and civilising” pursuit and one which could help to sire international goodwill.
When the Argentine won in 1953 at the Beaconsfield GC in Canada, they were one among only seven two-man sides. More teams came along but it was not too many years before the rich traditions of the event started to lose out to rising purses elsewhere. Both in 1981 and 1986 there was no World Cup.
Today, thanks to Dr Chu and his safe pair of hands, there are 28 teams eagerly vying with one another to get their names on the original John Hopkins trophy. Eighteen of the sides will have qualified automatically, while the other ten comprise the host nation and the top three pairs from each of a trio of 16-team-strong qualifying events held in Europe, Asia and America. In other words, it is only now, 55 years after it began, that the World Cup is approaching the pinnacle of its potential.
It was in 1957, in the year after America’s legendary winning partnership of Ben Hogan and Sam Snead brought in the crowds at Wentworth, that there was a turn of events to give a sharp taster of that promise. Though Japan, at that stage, was not a golfing nation, Koichi Ono and Pete Nakamuru came out on top.
Hopkins had passed away shortly beforehand but Fred Corcoran, the World Cup’s Tournament Director, knew exactly how the result would have resonated with him.
“If,” said Corcoran, “I had any doubts about Hopkins’ sincerity and the soundness of his doctrine, Tokyo erased them. It was hard to believe, watching the teams chatting easily on the first tee, that many of these nations had been at war only a few years earlier.”
As for the knock-on effect in Japan itself, that was something which would have extended way beyond Hopkins’ wildest dreams. Ono and Nakamuru became national heroes and, overnight, Japan became a nation of golf fanatics. In 1956 alone, no fewer than 20 new courses were rolled out across the country and the first double-decker driving range shot up in Tokyo.
Besides bringing together old friends and foes, along with rich nations and poor, the World Cup has boasted players of all ages. In 1979, to cite just one example, there was a 52-year age difference between the oldest competitor and the youngest, with Flory van Donck of Belgium 67 and Mark Vovk of Yugoslavia 15.
The event is nothing if not a stage for the exchange of golfing tips and techniques and when, in Paris in 1963, it was observed that Arnold Palmer and Jack Nicklaus were hitting more balls than the rest of the teams put together, others would have taken note.
Even Tiger Woods, who won with Mark O’Meara in 1998 and with David Duval in 1999, will tell you that he always has half an eye on how others in the game go about their golfing business.
In addition to providing the contest with a spectacular hub at Mission Hills, Dr Chu has made his own particular contribution to the storied lore of the event by taking it under his wing for a 12-year period. Twelve years, as he has explained, is a special number in China, one which signifies the 12 years in the Chinese horoscope and the completion of a cycle.
Meanwhile, his picture of the world swinging in unison is evolving all the time. When YE Yang, who is competing in this year’s championship, became the first Asian player to capture a major as he won the 2009 PGA championship, the celebrations were not confined to Asia.
Over in Montreal, there was a day-long celebration which attracted in excess of 200 golfers from the city’s South Korean community.
Where was it held?
At the Beaconsfield GC, the World Cup’s original home.