HSBC CHAMPIONS LOG DAY 2: Heavy rain means no play at Sheshan

IT'S a bad news from Day Two at the HSBC Champions...heavy overnight rain continued through the morning and with further rain forecast, play has been officially abandoned for the day without a ball being hit.

Several potential revised start times were issued during the morning, but with a lot of standing water on parts of the course, and further rain forecast, tournament organisers had little choice but to abandon play.

The intention now is to play as much of two rounds on Saturday as possible, beginning at 6.45am.

Marc Webster, the HSBC Champions tournament director, said: "The weather forecast for Saturday and Sunday is very positive. We will start play at 6.45am on Saturday with the leaders including Henrik Stenson, Phil Mickelson, Sergio Garcia and Anthony Kim going out at 8.30am.

"Play is scheduled to end at approximately 5pm having completed the second round and half of the third round. We will return on Sunday morning at 7.30am to complete the third, followed by the fourth round which will conclude at approximately 5pm for the presentation ceremony to the winner of the HSBC Champions.

"All credentials or tickets for Friday will be valid for free entry for Saturday’s play. For further enquires please call +86 (0)12157798142."

The European Tour tournament director, David Probyn, said: "The weather forecast for Saturday and Sunday is very positive. We will start play at 6.45am on Saturday with the leaders including Henrik Stenson, Phil Mickelson, Sergio Garcia and Anthony Kim going out at 8.30am.

"Play is scheduled to end at approximately 5pm having completed the second round and half of the third round. We will return on Sunday morning at 7.30am to complete the third, followed by the fourth round which will conclude at approximately 5pm for the presentation ceremony to the winner of the HSBC Champions.

"All credentials or tickets for Friday will be valid for free entry for Saturday’s play. For further enquires please call +86 (0)12157798142."

"Our prime objective and our current intention is to complete 72 holes in the HSBC Champions. Round two is scheduled to start at 6.45am tomorrow morning and our plan will be to put the players straight back out for the third round without a redraw. Therefore we would hope that the final matches would be able to achieve around 27 holes tomorrow (Saturday).

"We would then intend to restart the third round, with players in position on the course, at around 7.30am on Sunday morning, meaning the third round would conclude around 9.30am. The draw for the fourth and final round would take place after that.

"Play was abandoned today on the basis that the two hour period of dry weather we did have, did not restore the golf course to playable conditions on the fairways and with light to moderate rain forecast for the rest of the day, in addition to visibility also decreasing, clearly the situation was only going to worsen."

You can follow all the play (with the hope of kinder weather) right here on hsbcgolf.com - and if you would care to make a comment about the tournament, the players, or our website, please feel free to contact us here.