Equal among majors

With the Grand Slam over, the focus is now shifting to the next best known series of golf events "" the WGC-NEC Invitational, where Darren Clarke will defend his title.

The event will take place at the Firestone Country Club in Akron, Ohio, where some of the best action will be seen this week.

Six weeks after the Invitational, the spotlight will move to the WGC-American Express. The year will round off with the WGC-World Cup in Spain this November.

What exactly is the World Golf Championships, or WGCs, series?

Simply put, the WGCs are somewhat like the "Majors" without being Majors. With the Majors making it to the headlines as the world's most prestigious events, golf promoters "" as in tennis and many other sports "" found a way to create an event with a spin which could place them in the same league as the Majors. And that's how the World Golf Championships was born.

The series counts a lot simply because of the amount of prize money each event carries. The WGCs are now considered golf's most prestigious competitions after the four Majors.

The WGC series is the first set of events to be jointly sanctioned by the world's six major golf Tours. These include the US PGA Tour, the European Tour, the Japan Golf Tour, the PGA Tour of Australasia, the Southern Africa Tour and the Asian Tour.

These tours form the International Federation of PGA Tours. The concept was born in 1996 and the first three WGC series events were launched in 1999, and a year later, the World Cup was formed.

This year, with a purse of at least $ 7 million for each event, the winner is assured of a tidy sum of over a million dollars. In addition, each event has representation from all the six continents. For instance, the WGC-NEC has Thai star, Thongchai Jaidee, as one of its invitees.

It is not only the winner who takes home a huge cheque but every player down the line makes a neat sum. For instance, when two Indians played for the first time in a WGC event, the last place finisher in the 69th place took back as much as $ 28,000.

Arjun Atwal in the tied 48th place won $32,500 and Jyoti Randhawa in the tied 54th position added $30,000 to his kitty. At the World Cup, where India was represented by Gaurav Ghei and Digvijay Singh, they were assured a minimum of $15,000 each.

The events also feature different formats. The WGC NEC Invitational and the WGC American Express Championships are 72-hole stroke play events, but with no cuts. And the first event of the year, the WGC Accenture, is a matchplay restricted to the world's top 64 players.

The WGC series ends with the World Cup in this series, which is a 72-hole team competition. It has two rounds of fourball stroke ball and two rounds of foursome stroke play with no cuts being applied.

There are teams of two players each from 24 countries, with many of them coming through the qualifier's route.