The World Golf Championships (WGC) are a group of four annual events for professional golfers created by the International Federation of PGA Tours, with a fifth to be added in 2012. All four current WGC tournaments are official money events on the European Tour and the Japan Golf Tour, and officially sanctioned by the Asian Tour, Sunshine Tour, PGA Tour of Australasia, and PGA Tour. Three of the four are official money events on the PGA Tour; the HSBC Champions does not offer official prize money on that tour. However, the HSBC Champions winner receives an invitation to the following year's Hyundai Tournament of Champions, the PGA Tour's season opener that invites only winners of tournaments in the previous season, and is also credited with an official PGA Tour win if he is a tour member.

Three of the four current WGC events exceed the major championships in prize money, while the HSBC Champions (newly promoted to WGC status in 2009) has a top prize comparable to that of the majors. The fifth WGC event, to be hosted by the South Africa-based Sunshine Tour beginning in 2013 and known as the Tournament of Hope, will have a purse of US$8.5 million. In the pantheon of golf events, some rank WGCs immediately below the major championships and above all other competitions; however, others would put The Players Championship, the so-called "Fifth Major," above WGC events.

The World Golf Hall of Fame is located at World Golf Village near St. Augustine, Florida, in the United States, and it is unusual among sports halls of fame in that a single site serves both men and women. It is supported by a consortium of 26 golf organizations from all over the world.

The Hall of Fame Museum Building is designed by the museum architecture specialist firm of E. Verner Johnson and Associates of Boston, Massachusetts. They also produced the museum master plan that established the overall size, mission and qualities of the overall museum and the surrounding facilities and site.

The Hall of Fame Museum features a permanent exhibition and a rolling program of temporary exhibitions. Designed by museum design firm Ralph Appelbaum Associates, the Hall of Fame and exhibition area contains exhibits on the game's history, heritage, and techniques; major players and organizations; golf course design, equipment, and dress; and new directions, such as ecological concerns in course management.

Eldrick Tont "Tiger" Woods (born December 30, 1975) is an American professional golfer whose achievements to date rank him among the most successful golfers of all time. Formerly the World No. 1, he is the highest-paid professional athlete in the world, having earned an estimated US$90.5 million from winnings and endorsements in 2010.

Woods turned professional in 1996, and by April 1997 he had already won his first major, the 1997 Masters. He first reached the number one position in the world rankings in June 1997. Through the 2000s, Woods was the dominant force in golf, spending 264 weeks from August 1999 to September 2004 and 281 weeks from June 2005 to October 2010 as world number one. From December 2009 to early April 2010, Woods took leave from professional golf to focus on his marriage after he admitted infidelity. His multiple infidelities were revealed by several different women, through many worldwide media sources. This was followed by a loss of form, and his ranking gradually fell to a low of #58 in November 2011. He snapped a career-long winless streak of 107 weeks when he captured the Chevron World Challenge in December 2011. As of April 8, 2012, he is ranked #8.

Gerry Lester "Bubba" Watson, Jr. (born November 5, 1978) is an American professional golfer on the PGA Tour. One of the few left-handed golfers on tour, he is a major champion, the winner of the Masters Tournament in 2012. Among the longest drivers on the PGA Tour, in 2007 he had an average drive of 315.2 yards (288.2 m) and can hit a ball over 350 yards (320 m), capable of generating a ball speed up to 194 mph (312 km/h)]. Watson won the 2012 Masters Tournament after defeating Louis Oosthuizen in a sudden death playoff. The win elevated Watson to a career-high fourth place in the Official World Golf Ranking.

Watson was born and raised in Bagdad, Florida, near Pensacola. He played on the golf team at Milton High School, which had featured future PGA Tour members Heath Slocum and Boo Weekley just before he attended. Watson played golf for Faulkner State Community College in nearby Baldwin County, Alabama, where he was a junior college All-American. He transferred to the University of Georgia, the defending NCAA champions, and played for the Bulldogs in 2000 and 2001. As a junior, Watson helped lead the Bulldogs to the SEC title in 2000.