Half a billion households will watch Volvo World Match Play Championship Golf stars from 15 nationalities came for the tournament at Thracian Cliffs Golf & Beach Resort

14.05.2013 | 15:11

"This week, Bulgaria and Thracian Cliffs Golf Club will be on TV screens around the world in all its splendor", said Per Ericsson, President of Volvo Event Management, at the official opening of the Volvo World Match Play Championship, which will be held from 16 to 19 May. Nearly 60 radio and television stations will broadcast the competition featuring 24 of the best golfers in the world. “If you would make a comparison with soccer, as you guys all know in Bulgaria, the guys that you don't know the name of, like Nicolas here, they are the Zlatans, the Ronaldos or Torres in soccer.  That's kind of the tournament we are actually hosting here in Bulgaria this week.

Besides the prestigious trophy, the participants in the championship will compete for three attractive prizes provided by Volvo – Volvo FH truck, Volvo V40 Cross Country and Volvo backhoe loader. Each is on offer to the first golfer to ace one of the following holes - 7th, 8th and 17th during competition play from the opening rounds on Thursday through to the Final on Sunday.

"This is the biggest sporting event ever organised in Bulgaria", said the President of the Bulgarian Golf Association, Krassimir Guergov. He thanked the organizers from Volvo, IMG and the European Tour for the decision to choose Bulgaria for a host country of Volvo World Match Play Championship 2013. "Through TV broadcasts, 400 million households around the world will get to know the beauty of Bulgaria. This will be of great importance for the development of tourism and economy of the country", said Mr. Guergov.

At the opening press conference, the tournament director Jose Maria Zamora conducted the draw of the players together with Per Ericsson. Here are the players that on Thursday and Friday will play the group matches and the best of them will qualify for the quarterfinals on Saturday, semi-finals and final on Sunday:

Group Seve Ballesteros: Graeme McDowell, Chris Wood, Stephen Gallacher
Group Gabrielsson Assar: Ian Poulter, Tongchai Jaidee, Thomas Aiken
Group Arnold Palmer: Peter Hanson, George Coetzee, Shane Lowry
Group Gustaf Larson: Bo Van Pelt, Richard Sterne, Geoff Ogilvy
Group Ian Woosnam: Branden Grace, Nicolas Colsaerts, Kiradech Aphibarnrat
Group Greg Norman: Henrik Stenson, Francesco Molinari, Felipe Aguilar
Group Mark McCormack: Thorbjørn Olesen , Carl Pettersson, Scott Jamieson
Group Gary Player: Gonzalo Fernandez-Castano, Jamie Donaldson and Brett Rumford.

With unexpected problems began the tournament for the defending champ Nicolas Colsaerts, who also attended the press conference – because of a strike at the Brussels airport, the Belgian arrived in Bulgaria without his luggage and his golf clubs.

“It was chaos in Brussels.  There's been a strike with baggage handlers.  I have no suitcase, no golf bag. And thanks to the power of social media, we put a few comments on some Facebook pages and people started to go crazy about it.  Some of my people were allowed to go into where all the luggage were stuck and find my golf bag.  And we put my dad in a plane just now, he is flying just now to get the bag over", said Colsaerts. Besides him, journalists’ questions at the press conference were answered by another two very popular golfers – the Swede Henrik Stenson and the Englishman Ian Poulter.