HSBC Champions

Infobox_Golf_Tournament
tournament_name = HSBC Champions
nickname =


location = flagicon|CHN Shanghai, China
establishment = 2005
course = Sheshan Golf Club
par = 72
yardage = 7,143
tour = European Tour
Asian Tour
Sunshine Tour
PGA Tour of Australasia
format = Stroke play
purse = $5,000,000
month_played = November
aggregate = 268 David Howell (2005)
to-par = -20 David Howell (2005)
Current Champion = Phil Mickelson

The 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.

Invitations for the event, which is 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, are issued to all players placed amongst the top fifty in the Official World Golf Rankings. Also invited are players who have, during the calendar year preceding the event, captured at least one tournament title on a sanctioning tour, or have finished the preceding season amongst the top twenty in the European Tour's Order of Merit standings or amongst the top five in the Order of Merit standings of any of the other three sanctioning tours. Players who have 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—are also invited. Finally, starting berths are also reserved for eight Chinese amateur and professional players to be selected by tournament organizers and sponsors, whether by qualifying tournament or not.

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 US 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.

Winners

External links

* [http://www.hsbcgolf.com/default.sps?pagegid={A069940D-C597-4904-A513-A866EC76922B} Official site]
* [http://www.hsbcgolf.com/default.sps?pageid=138&pagegid=%7BAD862DD1%2D1053%2D4F84%2D8A29%2D7B3619061869%7D&pcpageid=16294 Official list of 2006 qualifiers]