Six Outsiders Who Could Win the WGC HSBC Champions

OK Hole19ers, strap yourselves in for the final World Golf Championship event of 2019.

Held annually at Sheshan Golf Club in Shanghai, this particular tournament is one of the final chances for the world's best golfers to land a prestigious title before the year's end. With that said, quite a few high-profile names have elected to stay away from the WGC-HSBC Champions. Brooks Koepka and Tiger Woods are the two biggest names who miss out - but let's focus on the golfers who are making the trip.

Does the slightly diluted field increase the chance of this week's winner coming from further down the rankings? It's possible. With that in mind, take a look at six guys we are expecting good things from this week.

Tony Finau

Though Finau may not win as many tournaments as he should - given his talent - there's no denying he'll be one of the favourites of those golfers sitting outside the top ten in the Official World Golf Rankings.

With two top-five finishes in his four major appearances in 2019, he has demonstrated he has the form to mix it with those at the top of the leaderboard in these money-spinning events. He could go well this week.

Get a 'What's in the Bag' with Finau below...

Rafa Cabrera-Bello

In his first full season on the PGA Tour, Cabrera-Bello managed to make it through to the FedEx Cup Playoffs before eventually falling short at the BMW Championship.

After a few weeks of rest and recuperation, and now with quite a few consecutive weeks of golf under his belt, the Spaniard will be looking to perform well in Shanghai before tackling the European Tour's Race to Dubai season-ending tournaments.

Rafa's pretty impressive with the driver. You can be too - check out his top tips...

Bubba Watson

The 2012 and 2014 Masters champion Bubba Watson could well benefit from Sheshan Golf Club's demanding layout - there are few more creative shotmakers in the game.

He has won this event previously (back in 2014) and will be extremely familiar with this particular golf course's routing. While his play in 2019 has been rather mediocre, this seems like the perfect style of venue to regain the form that delivered another WGC win last year.

While we're on the subject of creativity - Bubba gave us a little reminder of his fearless approach at the Zozo Championship...

Sungjae Im

After a string of impressive performances over the past few months, Sungjae Im has catapulted himself up the world rankings and looks set for a first PGA Tour win before too long.

The 2019 PGA Tour Rookie of the Year is highly-fancied this week during his first appearance at Sheshan, and if the likes of Rory McIlroy, Hideki Matsuyama, Justin Rose et al. fail to take control, he should be there or thereabouts.

He bagged an ace at the par-3 13th at The PLAYERS...

Tommy Fleetwood

A Runner-up spot at the Open Championship at Royal Portrush and a T-4 finish at the WGC-FedEx St Jude have been Tommy Fleetwood's 2019 highlights. Still, the Englishman will be determined to enjoy that sweet taste of victory before the year's out.

In 2018 he finished in T-7 and his four top-25 finishes in the last four years do point towards some confidence with this particular golf course. We think he could be in with a good shout this week if he can find his best form.

Key to his success on the golf course is this extensive pre-round warm-up session...

Sergio Garcia

As with Bubba Watson, Sergio Garcia enters this week somewhat further down the betting list than you might expect for a reasonably recent Masters champion. Though he has suffered from patchy form of late, the Spaniard does have the memory of a win at the KLM Open back in September to get those competitive juices flowing once again.

It would just be like Sergio to come from seemingly nowhere to win a prestigious event like the WGC HSBC Champions. With that said, while he has won titles all over the world, he has yet to taste WGC glory.

If you like the last ace, here's another courtesy of Sergio...

Who do you think will perform well at Sheshan Golf Club? Let us know in the comments.

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