English duo a Dubai threat

Philip Parkin

• Last Updated: November 04. 2009 11:25PM UAE / November 4. 2009 7:25PM GMT

Ian Poulter, top, and Ross Fisher are eyeing their first WGC title in Shanghai. Ian Walton/Getty Images

After impressive victories in Spain and Singapore, Ross Fisher and Ian Poulter will be aiming to build on the momentum from last weekend as the Race to Dubai continues in China over the next four days.

Despite the presence of Tiger Woods and Phil Mickelson in the HSBC Championship, which starts in Shanghai today, the two Englishmen must believe they are in with a chance of winning their first World Golf Championship event.

It will be a tall order, but Fisher and Poulter have set their sights sky high as they fight to finish the season as Europe’s No 1 and earn a place among golf’s elite.

While Fisher’s extra length off the tee gives the new World Match Play champion a major advantage, I would not write off Poulter’s chances of being the first of the two to climb into the top 10 of the world rankings.

Two places ahead at No 15, Poulter, who now plays the bulk of his golf in the US, rose to 10th in the Race to Dubai with his first European Tour win for three years in the Singapore Open and will not see any obstacles in his path.

The one thing that could hold him back is that he is not a long hitter. While he does everything well he could do with another 20 or 30 yards off the tee.

If you do not have that extra length every single aspect of your game has to be on if you are to win as there are no easy birdies or eagles to be had.

You have to work really hard to keep up with the big hitters who can get hot for three or four holes and pick up four or five shots on the long par fours or par fives.

Poulter could make adjustments to get extra length, but at this stage of his career I’m not sure that it would work for him.

On his downswing his body is almost going backwards instead of turning through the ball and he loses a lot of power that way.

He would gain more power from driving through with his body. Instead, because of his wrist angle at the top of his swing, he fights hard to get the club head to the ball squarely and leans back a little to make this happen.

But this is being hyper-critical. He has a good rhythm which is a bit on the quick side but the swing works well, it is consistent and I like the simplicity of it.

He has had this swing for about 10 years and while he could make changes to gain another 20 to 30 yards he would probably start losing accuracy.

His real strength is his ability to get up and down from around the greens. He has a very good touch, a lot of imagination and he’s not afraid to play different types of shots.

He can get the ball to within 10ft of the hole from almost anywhere and from that distance he is a brilliant putter.

I believe he can break into the world’s top 10, but he is going to have a battle against the longer hitters who find it easier to recover from mistakes.

Fisher’s length off the tee means that when he is firing on all cylinders, which he often is these days, he is always going to be in contention. Fisher is sitting pretty at No 4 in the Race to Dubai rankings following his World Match Play triumph in Spain, where he was so impressive, particularly in the 36-hole final against Anthony Kim.

He has been impressive in the majors this year and had his big chance to win the Open when he took a two-shot lead after four holes of the final round at Turnberry.

With his wife due to give birth any time, he had started the tournament believing he was not going to finish it and that kept most of the pressure off him for the first three days.

When the phone call he had been expecting still did not come on the Saturday, he suddenly found himself under the most intense pressure he had ever experienced when he led with 14 holes to play and it proved just a little too much for him.

Normally, the pressure would have built up slowly and he would have handled it better. But he is an impressive golfer and will have other chances, particularly because he hits the ball so far.

A couple of years ago in the Scottish Open I saw him playing alongside Mickelson, who is one of the longest hitters in the game, and on average Fisher was longer off the tee.

He takes the club back a little on the inside which means that while he comes slightly over the top on the downswing he actually comes back on plane and goes through the ball really well.

I like his action and it is quite an easy movement to repeat, hence his consistency.

If he is to secure that first WGC win and continue his rise up the Race to Dubai rankings, he will need to be at his best in China, where seven of the world’s top 10 have assembled.

This is the event where in 2005 David Howell went head-to-head with Tiger and beat him into second place. Twelve month later Korea’s YE Yang also got the better of Tiger, as he did to land this year’s US PGA title.

In 2007 Fisher had the event in the bag before taking an eight on the final hole to slip into a play-off with Lee Westwood and the eventual winner Mickelson.

Last year Sergio Garcia overcame Oliver Wilson in another play-off, and, after being shut out so far, I imagine Tiger will be eager to put the record straight this time.



sports@thenational.ae



Former European and US Tour player Philip Parkin (www.philparkin.com) is now a member of the TV golf commentary team for the BBC in the UK and Golf Channel in the US.