Championships for male professional golfers, established in 1999 as a successor to the World Series of Golf, which was also sponsored by NEC, and it is sanctioned and organized by the International Federation of PGA Tours and the prize money is official money on both the PGA Tour and the PGA European Tour. The event is sponsored by NEC through 2005 and is known as the WGC-NEC Invitational.
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The tournament changed sponsorship in 2006, with Bridgestone taking over from NEC as title sponsor, and as a part of the five-year sponsorship agreement, the event will continue to be held at its traditional site of the Firestone Country Club in Akron, Ohio. The current event has roughly half that for a standard professional golf event, a field of about 75 players, and basically, invitations are issued to the top few dozen golfers in the world. Only the Ryder Cup and Presidents Cup teams were eligible and the fields were about 40 players, from 1999 to 2001. All of the events, except the 2002 edition at Firestone Country Club, up to 2005 were held in the United States. The most frequently shown finish in the event's history occurred in 2000, when the final round was delayed and Tiger Woods capped a record 11-stroke win by sticking his approach on the final hole to within 2 feet in near-total darkness.