What is the WGC series?

Simply Golf

The WGC are considered golf's most prestigious competitions, apart from the Majors. They are also an attempt to internationalise the game.

This global series of four events are the first events ever to be jointly sanctioned by the world's six major golf tours, the US PGA Tour, European Tour, Japan Golf Tour, PGA Tour of Australasia, Southern Africa Tour and Asian Tour.

These tours collectively form the International Federation of PGA Tours. The first three WGC series events were launched in 1999 and the World Cup was added in 2000.

While the Majors are purely individual events in the traditional stroke play format, the WGC events are often different and the first prize is always in excess of $1 million.

The field for each one of them is culled from the very best in the world and there is always some representation from each of the six member tours.

The year's first WGC event is the Accenture World Match Play championships (won by Tiger Woods this year in February) and it is played on the match-play format amongst the top 64 ranked players in the world.

The WGC NEC Invitational (won by Darren Clarke in August this year) and the WGC American Express Championships (held last week) are 72-hole stroke play events, but with no cuts.

The WGC American Express, where Tiger Woods defended his title, was worth $ 28,000 to the player, who finishes last and 69th in the field, while Woods, as the winner took home a shade over $1 million.

Atwal in the tied 48th place won $32,500, Randhawa in the tied 54th position added $30,000 to his kitty.

Finally, there is the World Cup in this series, and that is a 72-hole team competition, consisting of two rounds of fourball stroke ball and two rounds of foursome stroke play with no cuts being applied. There will be 24 teams of two players each from 24 countries.

For this year's event in Kiawah Island, US in November, among the qualifiers for the elite event are India's Gaurav Ghei and Digvijay Singh.

Though India has played the World Cup before, it was before the WGC series was launched. Ghei and Singh, when they play the World Cup, will get a minimum of $15,000 each.

Japan's Shigeyuki Maruyama and Toshi Izawa won the previous edition in November last year in Mexico.