Sunday 30 October 2016 09:46, UK
Henrik Stenson will head in to the European Tour’s Final Series top of the Race to Dubai standings after a runner-up finish at the WGC-HSBC Champions.
The Open champion fired a joint-low round-of-the-day 65 at Sheshan International to end the week joint-second with Daniel Berger, seven strokes behind runaway champion Hideki Matsuyama.
The Swede now takes a 261,386 point lead in to the closing three-tournament stretch, with last year's Race to Dubai winner Rory McIlroy more than a million points behind in third spot.
Stenson needed to finish outright third or better in Shanghai to leapfrog Danny Willett in to pole position, with the Masters champion ending the week fourth-bottom of the leaderboard.
After firing four birdies on his way to reaching the turn in 32, Stenson added another at the 11th and picked up another gain at the 14th before moving ahead of McIlroy on the leaderboard with a four at the par-five last.
"I could see Rory was going at it, so I just tried to keep up and it was nice to sneak that one in the last to go one ahead of him," Stenson told reporters after his round.
"It's going to be tight all the way to the end, and that's the way we like it. It would be nice to go into the last one knowing that if you win in Dubai, you win the overall [order of merit]."
The only other change in the top 10 of the rankings saw BMW PGA champion Chris Wood move ahead of Branden Grace in to eighth position, despite a poor finish on Sunday.
Wood had been level-par with two holes to play, but bogeyed the 17th and racked up a double-bogey at the last on his way to a closing 75.
Watch the European Tour's Final Series live throughout out November on Sky Sports 4 - your home of golf. The Turkish Airlines open begins on Thursday from 9am.
