“China is an unstoppable force in world golf and golf needs to invest in China.”

That’s the message from HSBC’s Giles Morgan ahead of this week’s WGC – HSBC Championship here at the Sheshan Golf Club in Shanghai.

This year mark’s the 10th anniversary of the prestigious event and also a decade long partnership for title sponsor, HSBC.

A record 40 of the world’s top-50 World Ranked players will tee up on Thursday in the start of the $US 8.5m tournament headed by the Major Champions Justin Rose, Adam Scott, Bubba Watson and Martin Kaymer.

Also present is former 2008 WGC – HSBC winner Sergio Garcia, Sweden’s Henrik Stenson, whose wife gave birth to a third child weekend, along with American Billy Horshell who captured the 2014 FedEx Cup.

Morgan is in charge or Global Sponsorship and Events at HSBC and hosted a lunch today for a number of the media, and with Stenson present, indicated the growth of the tournament is not only clearly reflected in the fact that TV audiences reached 515,268,452 last year compared to 341,629,786 for the first staging of the event in 2005 that in 2005 the event boasted 13 of the world’s top-50 and 28 of the top 50 four years later.

“We are at pains to try and educate everyone in this part of the world that there is some wonderful and historical golf tournaments like the Hong Kong Open that has been going for years and years,” said Morgan.

Giles Morgan with special guest Henrik Stenson at a luncheon today within the Sheshan Golf Club and venue for this week’s WGC – HSBC Champions.

“So there is also a reason why this event has rolled and rolled and that strength in happening because the world’s top golfers enjoy playing here.

“China is quite an unstoppable force in world golf particularly when you look at the conclusion where the sport is going.

“Yes, some of the world’s top players are not here, and that’s well documented and whether that is for managerial or personal issues but the key point the majority are here  and that is a really important stamp.

“There are some great new golfers coming through and you look at the stars of the game and many are here.

Morgan was a key not speaker in Abu Dhabi earlier this year when HSBC hosted a ‘World Golf Business’ forum and that next year will be staged here in Shanghai, and he cited the growing shift in the world’s middle class to China, and pointing out it is the middle class you are more attracted to golf.

“We feel there has been kind of a revolution that’s been going in golf for the last seven or eight years and this was highlighted in the forum we sponsored at Abu Dhabi and that looked at the game of golf more broadly than from professional sense, ” he said.

“We looked a middle class emergence when golf really kick started in Britain at the time of the Industrial Revolution and moving to the 20th Century that was much about American middle class growth but now looking ahead to 2020 the middle class growth prediction is that 42% of the world’s middle class will be Asian.

“So golf will grow in this part of the world and that is very exciting as the commercial landscape in this sport, almost under our noses has changed massively.

“You look at the Olympics and it was a massive moment golf was voted back into the Olympics but with this growth in the middle class the game is becoming more international.

“However while it has provided challenges in the US and the UK, and some parts of Europe, where the game of golf has not been growing in this part of the world it has.

“With that pace of change and which is so astonishing, and when you look at this golf tournament and I mentioned this week we have 30 of the world’s top-50, the HSBC Champions is now the ninth biggest golf tournament in the world but only after nine years which is an amazing accomplishment for the sport.   And for the sport and not just HSBC.”

However with this growth in the middle class in Asia what Morgan indicated was that there is still a ‘lag’

“The game needs to catch up with itself as this has happened all so fast and it’s such rapid change with the Olympics and with the growth of the game in China and will middle class growth,” Morgan stressed.

“So golf still has a bit of a lag in terms of structure of the calender and the hierarchy of he game, and with golf funded so much by sponsors, and when you think outside of the majors there is two sponsors in BMW and ourselves, we are probably involved in some way in half the top-20 events in the world other than the majors.

“So it is important that the commercial investment that commercial sponsors make to this wonderful game of golf that the structure of the game supports that for the good of the players.

“The game needs to invest and focus where growth is and that’s a commercial reality.”