"We recognized it was going to be a significant purse, it was going to have a good format and if it attracted the players that are eligible, it achieves significant world ranking points, so we were very comfortable with that.
"It’s an open question on official money. We could convert it to official money at the right time, if it makes sense. Sometimes we forget that the British Open didn’t become official money until 10 years ago."
The British Open became an officially sanctioned PGA event in 1995 but as a major championship always lured top US players, but whether many top US tour players will compete in the China event is still uncertain.
The Champions tournament, set for November 5-8 in Shanghai, already has the top draw in golf in top-ranked Tiger Woods, who already has announced his participation.
The event also becomes the fourth World Golf Championships event, the other three all now being staged at US sites after some were played outside US soil for a few times.
"We haven’t made any bones about the fact that we’d like to have a WGC event played outside the United States, and our focus was Asia," Finchem said.
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