Defending Champion Graeme McDowell welcomed the return of the Volvo World Match Play Championship to England at the London Golf Club in Kent.

Even if the Ulsterman didn’t realise that the course that the event is being played on this week even existed until his arrival in Kent this week.

Speaking before the tournament began, McDowell said, “I think it’s great that such a prestigious competition returns to its’ spiritual home… well close enough.”

Remembering that this tournament was originally based just round the M25 at Wentworth, McDowell went on, “This is a great venue right here at the London Club, even if I only discovered Monday that we won’t be playing that course that I was aware of here.”

“From what I hear the International is a slightly shorter golf course which will hopefully lend itself better for Match Play. As I said, it’s great to have the event back in England after a couple of years bouncing around Spain and last year in Bulgaria which was a lot of fun where I was able to add my name to this trophy along with names like Player and Nicklaus, Ballesteros and Norman.”

“I mean, that this just shows what a prestigious event this is and it’s one of the key events on the European Tour and it’s important that this event continues and is supported by this type of field.”

“This is a strong field this week and I’m excited about my defence especially as I won’t have to switch gears after the couple of weeks off that I’ve had after the Ryder Cup – I was able to keep the Match Play going through my practicing into this week and continuing where I left off at Gleneagles and win a couple of matches and get through to the nitty gritty of the weekend.”

“As am amateur I was a good match player playing a lot of match play as I was growing up as a lot of the amateur events are very much that way based, perhaps even too much so.”

“When I turned pro, you get into the stroke play mind set and you, I suppose, start to lose the match play mind set as you don’t play it that much, and as a result I didn’t play too much in those early days. I didn’t get the experience of match play of being a professional and when you enter your first World Match Play I had a few “early baths” and never really carried it off on good runs and didn’t get a run together.”

“But in the last three or four years probably going back to when I got beaten in the Final of this event, it was from then that I really got my feet back underneath my match play form and I feel that after winning some singles matches at Ryder Cup, I do think that I’ve got my match play instincts back again and there’s no doubt that you have to get your mind set back it really is.”

“You’re playing the man with a slight eye on playing the golf course so that you can react to what’s happening – short game and putting is so important and there’s no surprise that players like Ian Poulter are such great players in this format of the game.”

“What makes him such a brilliant match player is that his putting is so very good. It’s a completely different mind this week as I said and so fingers crossed and I’m really looking forward to hopefully defending well this week.”

“We were going to have seven Ryder Cup players this week Thomas (Bjorn) has sadly had to pull out. It’s got a feel of a high quality field without the headliners of the Rory’s or Westwood’s and the top, top real escalon, but we have got is a very solid field let’s be honest and we could do with puting a bit of a show on and hopefully the sun will shine, we get a good crowd and quality line up Saturday and Sunday to showcase what is a tournament that deserves a great event and a great sponsor; it deserves a quality venue like this one this week and we don’t want to be losing this event – this event need to be reinstated to its’ former glory and we’ll do everything we can to make sure that happens.”

McDowell is the number two seed for the Tournament (world number 5 Henrik Stenson is top seed) and the defending champion has been drawn in the “Gustaf Larsen” group and will play Alexander Levy on Wednesday; Mikkl Ilonen on Thursday and then Joost Luiten on Friday.

Our coverage of the event will see daily updates of the group stages and “live” coverage of the knock out golf on Saturday and Sunday…