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The WGC-HSBC Champions is a men's professional golf 72-hole tournament contested annually since 2005 in November on a course designed by Nelson & Haworth at the Sheshan Golf Club in Shanghai, People's Republic of China. In April 2009 it was announced that the tournament had been awarded World Golf Championships status, starting with the next tournament in November. It is now the fourth tournament on the worldwide calendar along with the WGC-Accenture Match Play Championship, the WGC-CA Championship and the WGC-Bridgestone Invitational events.[1]
[edit] 2005-2008 fields
Invitations for the event, which was sanctioned by four—the European, the Asian, and Sunshine Tours and the PGA Tour of Australasia—of the six constituent tours of International Federation of PGA Tours, were issued to all players placed amongst the top 50 in the Official World Golf Rankings (OWGR). Also invited were players who had, during the calendar year preceding the event, captured at least one tournament title on a sanctioning tour, or had finished the preceding season amongst the top twenty in the European Tour's Race to Dubai (the Order of Merit standings through 2008) or amongst the top five in the Order of Merit standings of any of the other three sanctioning tours. Players who had finished first in the Order of Merit standings in any of three developmental tours—the Von Nida and Challenge Tours and the winter swing of the Sunshine Tour—were also invited. Finally, starting berths were also reserved for eight Chinese amateur and professional players to be selected by tournament organizers and sponsors, whether by qualifying tournament or not.
[edit] 2009 field
The qualifying process changed when the event became a World Golf Championship.[2] The 2009 field consists primarily of winners of OWGR tournaments with a Strength of Field Rating of 40 or more (which corresponds to a OWGR rating of 16 or more). The set of tournaments are determined by the rating of tournaments from the 2007 HSBC Champions to the 2008 HSBC Champions (2008 calander year for the PGA Tour). From this set, each of the six member tours gets a certian number of winners automatically qualified (from 5 to 23). Winners from the 2008 HSBC Champions to 2009 WGC-HSBC Champions (2009 PGA Tour) then qualify (regardless of the actual field strength of the tournament) with players also eligible from each tour's Order of Merit. Co-sanctioned tournaments are assigned to only one tour.
- Winners of the four major championships and The Players Championship
- Winners of the three World Golf Championships
- Winners of the top 23 rated PGA Tour events (34 events met rating)
- Top 5 available players from the FedEx Cup
- Winners of the top 23 rated European Tour events (25 events met rating)
- Top 5 available players from the Race to Dubai
- Nine players - winners of the top Asian Tour events, remainder from Order of Merit (6 events met rating)
- Five players - winners of the top Japan Golf Tour events, remainder from Order of Merit (8 events met rating)
- Five players - winners of the top Sunshine Tour events, remainder from Order of Merit (2 events met rating)
- Five players - winners of the top PGA Tour of Australasia events, remainder from Order of Merit (4 events met rating)
- Four players from China
- Top two available players from the OWGR
- Winners of additional tournaments, ordered by field strength (11 from PGA Tour, 2 from European Tour, 3 from Japan Golf Tour)
[edit] History
Although many players, principally Americans, who play primarily on the North American PGA Tour declined invitations to play in 2005, the tournament nevertheless featured several prominent players, including twenty ranked amongst the world's top fifty, and offered a purse of US$5,000,000, greater than that of any other event played in Asia or Oceania. The large prize fund serves not only to recognize and maintain the collective quality of the participant players but also to encourage other players, especially those from the European Tour, to enter, in furtherance of the Tour's efforts to expand into east and southeast Asia, of which the Champions event is, pecuniarily, the most significant manifestation. Before 2008, any prize money earned counted toward the Order of Merit standings only on the European Tour inasmuch as the $833,333 first place prize would place a player first overall on any of the other three sanctioning tours, irrespective of his performance across the rest of a season. Starting in 2008, 50% of prize money earned in this event counts toward the Asian Tour Order of Merit.
The title sponsor, the London-headquartered global bank HSBC, is the sponsor of one other professional tournament: the HSBC Women's Champions, a U.S. LPGA event held in Singapore. The company was also sponsor of the HSBC World Match Play Championship from 2003 to 2007 and the HSBC Women's World Match Play Championship on the LPGA Tour from 2005 to 2007. The bank briefly co-sponsored the Enjoy Jakarta HSBC Indonesia Open, an event co-sanctioned by the Asian and European Tours, in 2006 and was also a sponsor of the HSBC New Zealand PGA Championship.
[edit] Winners
[edit] References
[edit] External links
Shanghai, China
United States
Ernie Els
Spain
Oliver Wilson
South Korea
