Golf Sponsor HSBC Unhappy With Tiger Woods Skipping HSBC Champions Event

The director of sports sponsorship for banking firm HSBC "wrote a new verse to a familiar melody, centred on a player who has become something of a personal fixation," according to Steve Elling of THE NATIONAL. For two years in a row, Tiger Woods "has been in China in November" yet has skipped the HSBC Champions event in Shanghai. HSBC Head of Global Sponsorship & Events Giles Morgan, who has taken Woods to task on the same front in the past, on Wednesday "offered more criticism about the American star’s failure to commit." Morgan reiterated his complaint that Woods "should support the events" where sponsors are spending a fortune, “as opposed to playing in meaningless, money-making opportunities around the World Golf Championships” (THE NATIONAL, 2/26).