Lee Westwood and Luke Donald going head-to-head at Match Play

England's Lee Westwood and Luke Donald fill the top two places in the world because of what they have done in Asia and America respectively recently - but for the next two weeks they are in Europe and locking horns with each other.

First comes the Volvo World Match Play Championship starting today at Finca Cortesin on Spain's Costa del Sol, which has been more wet than sunny so far this week.

Westwood, who kicks off against Dane Anders Hansen, is going for a third successive title after wins in Indonesia and South Korea.

Donald, whose opening group game is against American Ryan Moore, is trying for a Match Play double after lifting the World Golf Championships version in Arizona in February - the first of seven successive top-ten finishes he has had in the States.

Next week they will be at Wentworth for the BMW PGA Championship, and Westwood said: "Next week's going to be one of the strongest and best fields that I think the PGA Championship has ever had, so if that doesn't get them out nothing will. It's the first thing I think a country has had one and two in the world other than America and it just shows you the state of English and British golf right now. We have two Northern Irishmen in the top six, Paul (Casey] at ninth and people like Ian (Poulter] right up there as well."

Graeme McDowell, Rory McIlroy - the two Irishmen in question - Casey and Poulter are also back in Europe for this fortnight and with third-ranked Martin Kaymer playing as well, the Match Play has five of the world's top six and all four current major champions in its 24-man field. They are competing for a first prize of 703,000 that is second only to The Open in Europe this year - and any one of Westwood, Donald or Kaymer could be No?1 on Sunday night.

First they have to negotiate the group stages. Not held last year, the championship returns with a new format in which there are eight groups of three, with the top two in each tomorrow night progressing to the knockout stages.

In theory, all 24 players could be involved in sudden death play-offs to decide who goes through if, for instance, they all win one group game and lose the other.

NEW FORMAT

THE 24 players are divided into eight groups of three based on world rankings, with two points for a win and one for a halved match.

Groups (seeded positions in brackets):

Group A: (1) Lee Westwood, (16) Anders Hansen, (17) Aaron Baddeley; Group B: (2) Luke Donald, (15) Ryan Moore, (18) Ross Fisher; Group C: (3) Martin Kaymer, (14) YE Yang, (19) Noh Seung-yul; Group D: (4) Graeme McDowell, (13) Louis Oosthuizen, (20) Jhonattan Vegas; Group E: (5) Rory McIlroy, (12) Retief Goosen, (21) Nicolas Colsaerts; Group F: (6) Paul Casey, (11) Alvaro Quiros, (22) Soren Kjeldsen; Group G: (7) Charl Schwartzel, (10) Miguel Angel Jimenez, (23) Johan Edfors; Group H: (8) Francesco Molinari, (9) Ian Poulter, (24) Paul Lawrie.

Group matches today and tomorrow with the top two in each group going into Saturday's last 16. Semi-finals and final on Sunday.