World Golf Championships
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The World Golf Championships are a group of four annual events for male professional golfers created by the International Federation of PGA Tours.
Three of the events are for individual players, and are official events on both the PGA TOUR and the European Tour:
- WGC-Accenture Match Play Championship
- WGC-CA Championship
- WGC-Bridgestone Invitational (NEC Invitational prior to 2006)
These events all began in 1999, although the Bridgestone Invitational is the direct successor of the World Series of Golf, which began in 1976. The objective was to create a larger group of golf tournaments with a high global profile by bringing the leading golfers from different tours together on a more regular basis, rather than just for the major championships. At the time the publicity spoke of a "World Tour" which might develop on the basis of the World Championships and the majors. That concept seems to have been dropped, but the three events usually attract entries from almost all of the elite players who are eligible to compete and they rank among the most prestigious and high profile events outside of the majors. The prize money on offer is very close to being the highest for any professional golf tournament. Winners generally receive 35 to 39 Official World Golf Ranking Points, the most awarded for any tournament apart from the major championships, which carry 50 points, and THE PLAYERS Championship, which is allocated 40. Tiger Woods has dominated these tournaments, winning 12 of the first 23 events.
The other event is the WGC-World Cup, which is for national teams of two golfers, and was first played in 2000. It takes place after the end of the PGA TOUR and European Tour season, and the prize money does not count as official money on those tours. Far more leading players tend to opt out of this event than the other three, and the prize fund is smaller.
In most years two or three of the four events are staged in the United States and one or two are staged elsewhere.
