This week’s main tournament is the WGC Match Play, it is one of the few elite tournaments that is played with match play format, the tournament is organized by the International Federation of PGA Tours, and it is part of the PGA Tour and the European Tour, only the best 64 golfers in the world are invited to the tournament which makes it very competitive and attractive.
WGC Match Play Format
The match play is a scoring system in which a player earns a point for each hole in which they have bested their opponents. In match play the winner is the player with the most points at the end of play.
The Match Play format used at this week’s WGC Match Play is a little different as it introduces a new round robin that adds more competitiveness.
The 64 best ranked players in the world take part in this week’s event (in case a player does not enter, he is substituted by the next best ranked player), the players then are split into 16 groups of four according to the ranking.
The tournament is split into two phases:
The players are split into 16 groups of four players. Each group plays in a round-robin format over Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday. One point is awarded for a win, and one-half point for a tie, with only the group winner qualifying to the next round. If two or more players are tied at the top of the group, there is a sudden death stroke play tiebreaker played to decide who progresses.
The second phase is played as a knockout tournament, with the round of 16 and quarterfinals played on Saturday, and the semifinal, third-place playoff and final played on Sunday.
With this format, more play is taking place as the winner will play a total of 7 rounds of golf, this is to create more competitiveness and attraction to the format as it is less attractive for television broadcasters.
Course and Tournament Information
• Course: Austin Country Club
• Location: Austin, Texas
• Date: March 24-28
• Par: 71 / 7,182 Yards
• Purse: $10.5 Million
