UBS and Golf
UBS and Golf
Sponsorship has a long-standing tradition at UBS and encompasses support of sporting and cultural events and organizations all over the world.
About the UBS Hong Kong Open
The UBS Hong Kong Open is the flagship property of UBS’s sponsorship programme in Asia Pacific.
For over 50 years the tournament has brought elite golf to one of the world’s most dynamic cities, and, in a part of the world where golf’s relative lack of history is counterbalanced by its recent exponential growth in popularity, the tradition and heritage of the tournament – the longest-running professional sporting event in Hong Kong – is unique.
The attention of the sporting world will again turn to the East in November 2012, when the players from the Asian and European Tours gather to participate in the UBS Hong Kong Open.
Along with the US Masters at Augusta National, the UBS Hong Kong Open is one of just a handful of tournaments of such long history to have been played continuously at a single venue. A flagship event in Asian golf, over the last five decades the tournament has built a legacy of winners that sets it apart from other tournaments in the region.
First played in 1959, the UBS Hong Kong Open has gone from strength to strength with 10 players having won both a Major championship and the Hong Kong title.
Dual Open champion Greg Norman is a multiple winner (1979 and 1983), while Major winners including Ian Woosnam (1987), Bernard Langer (1991), Tom Watson (1992), Jose Maria Olazábal (2001) and Padraig Harrington (2003) have all had their names inscribed on the Hong Kong Open trophy over the years. European heavyweights, Miguel Angel Jiménez and Colin Montgomerie, have also added their unique stamp to the event with victories in 2004 and 2005, respectively. Indeed, in 2007, the ever-popular Jiménez won his second Hong Kong title.
In 2001, the event was jointly-sanctioned by the Asian and European Tours for the first time and in 2008, to mark the tournament’s 50th edition, UBS arranged for nine former champions to return to Fanling. Headlined by five-time Open champion Peter Thomson, previous winners making up the field included Langer, Olazabal, Montgomerie, Frost and Kang. At that time, a rising star, Rory McIlroy, and dual Major winner, John Daly, also participated in an all-star field.
The 2012 tournament is the eighth year of UBS’s sponsorship and, in keeping with elevating the tournament’s status, the UBS Hong Kong Open will offer a prize fund of US$2 million in 2012.
Asia Pacific is an extremely important market for UBS and sponsorship remains an important tool to deliver business and brand benefits. Aside from the continued partnership with the Hong Kong Open, UBS is a global partner of Formula One and is a long-term partner of the Beijing Music Festival. UBS is also a presenting sponsor of the Contemporary Art exhibition space in the Art Gallery of New South Wales and National Gallery of Victoria in Australia.
About UBS
UBS draws on its 150-year heritage to serve private, institutional and corporate clients worldwide, as well as retail clients in Switzerland. We combine our wealth management, investment banking and asset management businesses with our Swiss operations to deliver superior financial solutions.UBS is present in all major financial centers worldwide. It has offices in over 50 countries, with about 37% of its employees working in the Americas, 37% in Switzerland, 16% in the rest of Europe and 10% in Asia Pacific. UBS employs about 65,000 people around the world. Its shares are listed on the SIX Swiss Exchange and the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE).