2011 HSBC Championship Golf

The WGC-HSBC Champions is a men's professional golf 72-hole tournament. It has been contested annually since 2005 in November 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-Cadillac Championship and the WGC-Bridgestone Invitational events.

Sheshan Golf Club

Sheshan Golf Club is a golf course located west of Shanghai, China. The course was designed by Nelson & Haworth Design, it plays to a par of 72 and measures 7,143 yards (6,531 meters). Since 2006 the course hosts the annual WGC-HSBC Champions, which is a World Golf Championship event, won in 2009 and 2007 by Phil Mickelson. The course is also featured in EA Sports Tiger Woods PGA Tour 2010, 2011 and 2012.

Field

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 at that time, 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. The qualifying process changed when the event became a World Golf ChampionshipThe 2009 field consisted 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 calendar year for the PGA Tour). From this set, each of the six member tours gets a certain 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. The last category is cut when the field reaches 78 players, with the remainder becoming the field alternates.

2011 WGC-HSBC Champions
Tournament information
Dates	November 3–6, 2011
Location	Shanghai, China
Course(s)	Sheshan Golf Club
Tour(s)	Asian Tour PGA European Tour PGA Tour (unofficial)
Statistics
Par	72
Length	7,143 yards (6,532 m)
Field	78 players
Cut	None
Prize fund	7,000,000
Winner's share	$1,200,000

 

Qualifying Process

2009

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)

2010-2011

Same as 2009 except for last two categories. The top 25 on the OWGR were invited in category 12 and the list of additional tournament winners alternated with a list of those ranked after the top 25 in OWGR. (See 2010 WGC-HSBC Champions for detailed field.)

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 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.

Past Winners

Year	Winner	Country	Score	Margin of victory	Runner(s)-up	Country
2011	Martin Kaymer	Germany	268 (−20)	3 strokes	Fredrick Jacobson	Sweden
2010	Francesco Molinari	Italy	269 (−19)	1 stroke	Lee Westwood	England
2009	Phil Mickelson	United States	271 (−17)	1 stroke	Ernie Els	South Africa
2008	Sergio García	Spain	274 (−14)	Playoff(2nd hole)	Oliver Wilson	England
2007	Phil Mickelson	United States	278 (−10)	Playoff (2nd hole)	Ross Fisher	England
					Lee Westwood	England
2006	Yang Yong-eun	South Korea	274 (−14)	2 strokes	Tiger Woods	United States
					Retief Goosen	South Africa
2005	David Howell	England	268 (−20)	3 strokes	Tiger Woods	United States

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