Courtesy: Sheshan International Golf Club

The 2006/2007 European Tour came to an end last Sunday when Justin Rose captured the Volvo Masters and with it, the European Order of Merit.

The 2007/2008 European Tour begins this Thursday with Justin Rose looking to carry his form literally from one season to the next in the span of seven days in the season opening HSBC Champions Trophy. Boy, does time fly.

This is a relatively new tournament on the professional golf radar screen; this week marks the third HSBC Champions Trophy.

Last year's winner was South Korean golfer, Yang Yong-eun, who triumphed over a top field that included majors winners like Retief Goosen and Tiger Woods. So this tournament may be new on the radar screen but it's highly visible.

Tiger is not attending this year; in his place, Phil Mickelson, world number 2, will make his first appearance.

Five of the world's top 10 players, including Lefty, are committed. The others include Cabrera, Harrington, Goosen, Els, Garcia and Singh. By the way, Vijay's world ranking has slipped badly of late - he's down to number 12.

Oh yeah, and Yang will be back to defend.

The tournament returns to the Sheshan International Golf Club in Shanghai, China, one of those monstrous resort and real estate projects that are booming in China. The course measures just over 7100 yards. It was designed by the firm of Nelson and Haworth. Robin Nelson is an American; Neil Haworth, a Canadian who cut his teeth with Canadian designer Graham Cooke. Brett Mogg, who is an Australian, rounds out the partnership.

Together, the three architects have offices in Singapore, Montreal, San Francisco and Hong Kong. They have an astonishing list of work to their credit with courses in Canada, China, France, Australia, guam, Indonesia, Japan, Malaysia, the Philippines, the United States, Singapore and Thailand, more than 70 courses in all.

The HSBC Champions Trophy boasts a purse of five million dollars and is rapidly coming to be known as Asia's Major. China is awash in money (Petro China, which floated an initial public offering this week, is valued at 1 trillion dollars!) so it's a relative no-brainer to create a purse large enough to attract top talent from around the globe.

I'm sure many of the players are getting fat appearance fees to play, as an added incentive to come. Ernie Els passed up a chance to win the Order of Merit last week at the Volvo Masters in Spain so he could honor his contract to appear at the Singapore Open.

Of course, it's just a stone's throw from Singapore to Shanghai and more appearance money plus a chance at that huge purse. And Ernie has by now adjusted to the enormous time change and is rid of his jet lag.

There may have been more to Ernie's Volvo Masters decision than just a contract with the Singapore Open.