Howell has stomach for the fight

MAKING a fi rst appearance in the HSBC World Matchplay Championship at Wentworth, where the list of winners includes Arnold Palmer, Gary Player, Jack Nicklaus and Seve Ballesteros, is a prospect to set the nerves tingling.

“I always used to think of it as a tournament for ‘ them’ rather than ‘us’,” said the endlessly modest David Howell, who cannot quite believe he has made it to this level. He opens his campaign tomorrow against Jose Maria Olazabal.

Howell, whose BUPA sponsorship is in no way connected to the fact that he is more injury-prone than most professionals, demonstrated that he had fully recovered from his torn abdominal muscle when he won the recent BMW International Open. Even now, though, he shakes his head at the memory of how he was “ daft enough” to have a few swings with Vijay Singh’s 25lb practice club, a driver, on the fi rst day of the US Open. The following day he seized up on the range, and was away from the game for two months.

Singh, like Tiger Woods, Phil Mickelson and Sergio Garcia, turned down his invitation for this week, while Ernie Els, who won at the last time of asking, is at home beside Wentworth’s 16th hole recovering from knee surgery. Yet as was never better demonstrated than in 2001, when the Americans pulled out because of September 11, this tournament has what it takes to ignite whatever the circumstances.

In 2001, the sponsors ended up with one of the most attractive championships of them all, with Ian Woosnam and Padraig Harrington sharing 32 birdies in a fi nal during which a 43-year-old Woosnam came back from being three down to win by 2 & 1.

Colin Montgomerie will attract his usual crowd as he plays Mark Hensby, the 34year- old Austral ian who stepped out of the shadows by winning last year’s John Deere Classic in the United States. This year, he finished fifth in the Masters and third in the US Open before winning the Scandinavian Masters.