Monday, February 18, 2008

The WGC-Accenture Match Play Championship 2008

The WGC-Accenture Match Play Championship is one of the annual World Golf Championships for male professional golfers. It is a knockout event and is staged in January or February each year. It is sponsored by and named after Accenture, a consulting firm.

From its inauguration in 1999 through 2006 it was hosted every year by La Costa Resort and Spa in Carlsbad, California, except in 2001, when it was hosted by the Metropolitan Golf Club in Victoria, Australia.

In 2007 the event moved to The Gallery Golf Club in Marana, Arizona, a rural community surrounding Tucson, for at least four years. All three of the individual World Golf Championships events will be played in the United States from 2007, which has attracted criticism from some golfers, including Tiger Woods and Ernie Els, and in the media outside the United States. PGA Tour Commissioner Tim Finchem has responded by insisting that playing in the U.S. is best for golf as more money can be made there than elsewhere.

The Championship is a single elimination match play event. The field consists of the top 64 players available from the Official World Golf Rankings, seeded according to the rankings. The prize money for 2007 was $8 million, with the winner taking $1.35 million (both figures U.S. dollars) and the Walter Hagen Cup. Prize money is official on both the PGA Tour and the European Tour. All matches leading up to the final match are 18 holes, while the final match is 36 holes. In addition, the losers of the semifinal matches play an 18-hole consolation match for third place.

It is the successor event of the Andersen Consulting World Championship of Golf, a 32-man, unofficial money, match play event played from 1995 to 1998.

WGC-Accenture Match Play Championship

Tournament information
LocationMarana, Arizona
Established1999
Course(s)The Gallery Golf Club
Par72
Yardage7,351
Tour(s)PGA Tour
European Tour
FormatMatch play
Purse$8,000,000
Month PlayedFebruary
Tournament record score
Score9 & 8 Tiger Woods (2006)
Current champion
Henrik Stenson

Credit: Wikipedia

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