You have chosen to create a new tournament in a far-flung place not known for its interest in golf and you want it to be given instant recognition. What do you do?

There is only one thing you can do. You stump up the cash — millions of dollars of it — and you get Tiger Woods to cut the ribbon. Catch his interest and he will not only turn up, he will draw in the crowds, the press, the television cameras, and he will play like the golfing genius he is. Not only that, but he will glad-hand the corporate big hitters. Value for money? Do not doubt it.

No one could say that without Woods, the HSBC Champions tournament in China could not have got off the ground. But to have been in Shanghai when he played the inaugural event in November 2005, then again a year later, was something to behold. It would be fair to say that the spectators who went to watch that first week had no real idea of what was going on, or how to follow play. But they knew a giant celebrity when they saw one and were suitably impressed.

This week, the championship — originally open primarily to winners on the European Tour and selected Asian and Chinese players (this is still, after all, a high-end marketing exercise) — has come of age. Or so we are told.

This year, for the first time, the tournament has been taken under the WGC umbrella, meaning that it is now one of only four World Golf Championships and the first to be played in Asia. With a $7 million (about £4.2 million) prize fund, it should easily attract the game’s top players to the Sheshan International Golf Club, a lush and rich haven an hour’s drive from the city centre.

For the most part, it has done just that. Fifteen of the world’s top 20 are here this week, although several highly ranked Americans chose not to travel. That is a familiar tale and one not helped by the fact that the PGA Tour in the United States — one of the sanctioning bodies — will not allow a victory here to count as a win on its own tour, unlike everyone else. Inward looking? Oh, yes.

However curmudgeonly the Americans, this already has the look of a well-funded and established event. And when an unheralded Yang Yong Eun, of South Korea, beat Woods into second place in Shanghai in 2006, the knock-on effect in Asia can only be guessed at. That, three years later, Yang went on to defeat Woods and become the first Asian player to win a major tournament, at the US PGA Championship in August, is probably a portent of things to come.

Woods concurs. And with state-run programmes and financing, he believes that China, in particular, could lead the way. “They will become a powerhouse in golf,” he said.