HSBC Champions preview

A stellar field make their way to Sheshan International in Shanghai, China for the 10th running of the WGC-HSBC Champions.

This is the second leg of The Race to Dubai’s Final Series, the four-tournament swing which concludes the 2014 season.

Rory McIlroy still leads the points race by a distance - his tally of 5,400,700 is more than double that of second-placed Jamie Donaldson - and, like last week, the Northern Irishman sits this one out.

World no 6 Justin Rose heads the betting at 12/1 while Adam Scott, Sergio Garcia and Henrik Stenson - ranked 2nd, 3rd and 5th in the world - come next at 16/1.

US Open winner Martin Kaymer and Masters champion Bubba Watson have also made the trip to China while McIlroy is the only member of Europe's Ryder Cup winning team at Gleneagles not present.

Past winners

A look at the winners' roll-call shows that the cream really does rise to the crop in this event. Reading back from 2013, it shows: Dustin Johnson, Ian Poulter, Martin Kaymer, Francesco Molinari, Phil Mickelson, Sergio Garcia, Phil Mickelson, YE Yang and David Howell - every one of them either a Ryder Cup player or a major winner.

The course

Located in the west side of China's second city, Sheshan International offers a number of changes in elevation and has no shortage of trees. However, there is still a good deal of room off the tee and, measuring in at around 7,600 yards when playing to its fullest, there is obviously an advantage for the bigger-hitters. This venue has been used for eight of the nine previous runnings (the exception was 2012 when Ian Poulter triumphed at Mission Hills). Winning scores at Sheshan (starting with 2013 and reading backwards) were: -24, -20, -19, -17, -14, -10, -14 and -20.

Key stats

Last year, as well as smashing it over 302 yards in the Driving Distance stats, Dustin Johnson was also ranked second in Greens In Regulation and topped both putting categories (Putts Per GIR and Putts Per Round). The previous winner at Sheshan, Martin Kaymer, was 11th for GIR and 4th for Putts Per GIR while 2010 champ Francesco Molinari (unusually for him) also rode a hot putter (2nd Putts Per GIR, 1st Putts Per Round). If you can get your eye in on these greens, it's possible to keep sinking putt after putt.

Conclusion

It's easy to think Alexander Levy may be battling some kind of demons after throwing away a four-shot final round lead to lose last week's BMW in a play-off.

But getting straight back on the horse after a slip-up is usually the best way to exorcise them and the in-form Frenchman ticks plenty of other boxes this week.

In short, he's a big hitter with a superb record in China and he also happens to have one of the hottest putters around.

Levy has finished first and second on his last two starts in China while he's ranked 5th and 1st in the putting stats in his last two tournaments which also produced a victory and a runners-up finish.

He's quick to adapt to new courses so he looks ripe to put in another big performance. 

Jamie Donaldson was inches away from making the play-off last week but his fourth place did make it five top eights in his last nine starts in China.

He's also got one of the hottest putters around so there's good reason to believe that he could do what Ian Poulter did in this event in 2012 - ride the wave of being a Ryder Cup hero and go home with this trophy.

Donaldson's latest strokeplay form is 4-4-7-1 so back him each-way at 28/1.

The strong record of the elite players suggests it makes sense to look at the front of the betting and it's hard not to see Justin Rose playing a big part here.

The Ryder Cup's top points scorer has finished 5th (2013) and 7th (2011) on his two starts here and looks ready to post a third win of 2014.

He finished fourth in China last week and gave this assessment of his performance: "The week started off terribly for me being 4â€'over through four and I just really hung in well. So I'm proud to have any sort of chance coming up 18, I would have taken that Thursday. So sometimes you need to look at the big picture. I did a lot of things really well this week and excited about next week."

Back him to justify favouritism at 12/1.

Best bets

1pt e.w. Alexander Levy at 50/1 (1/4 1,2,3,4,5)

1pt e.w. Alexander Levy to be first round leader at 45/1 (1/4 1,2,3,4,5)

1.5pts e.w. Jamie Donaldson at 28/1 (1/4 1,2,3,4,5)

4pts win Justin Rose at 12/1