The Death of Matchplay

[TEPaul]

The death of match play? Hardly!

Match play is the format played by probably a good 95+% of the golfers in the world and that's not about to change.

The pros and match play and the ACUPUNCTURE World Match Play Championship and the top three seeds getting knocked out the first day contributing to the death of match play?

Not likely! The pros haven't played match play tournament golf in years (with a few exceptions of not much impact on the Tour pro population) and when they do play match tournament golf they're basically unfamiliar enough with the format as to occasionally not even know some of the rules.

It was about 10-12 years ago I was reading an arcticle in Golf Magazine by Ray Floyd (the Ryder Cup Captain) about how he had recommended to his team to putt out and put pressure on their opponents. So I picked up the phone, called Golf Magazine and told them you can't do that in match play. They said of course you can, what do you think the pros do every week? So I told them that's stroke play and furthermore, go read the rules book. They did and came back and said; "Whoops".

I guess they must have called Ray in England and said: "Ah, Ray, putting out in match play--no can do!" At least our pros weren't putting pressure on their opponents a few days later by putting out of turn so I guess they got the word somehow.

But anyway, they aren't going to kill match play golf because they really haven't played tournament match play in decades.

[Dan Kelly]

Tom IV --

Found that Bobby Jones passage, in "Down the Fairway" (page 150 in the edition I have): "I don't like 18-hole matches. I may be all wrong, but I can't like them. Too much can happen in one round, over which neither golfer has any jurisdiction. But no matter -- they are coming into fashion in this country, too; and the last national amateur at Baltustrol, where they played two 18-hole matches to start with, saw the two ultimate finalists, George Von Elm and myself, almost knocked off in Round I. George had to go to the nineteenth hole with Ellsworth Augustus, and I to the eighteenth with Dicky Jones."

[BillV]

Took me a while to get back to my own thread (Renee's birthday among other things)!  I personally hope that good golf that is interesting follows, but the Huckster got the idea in the first post! Hari-Kiri- nice visual there.

What is also interesting is that 56% or so of TheGolfChannel fans want  3 or more match play events a year.

Match play may not make the best theatre on television but it sure is interesting to see the little things that swing a match happen.  Els who normally excels in the format (Especially in 36 holes as would be expected) exits the round of 32 due to a balky putter.

The greens at LaCosta don't seem interesting enough for good match play, but poa annua was the ABC talking heads suggestion why things might be interesting.  I think PGA West Stadium this time of year would be a better venue for this thing. Zippy interesting greens with some better than average penal hazards.

Re-runs of big three golf, All Star Golf versus Shell's WWG suggest how the venue can dress up or dress down the made-for TV events.

The old Anderson in its original configuration had 4 regionals to arrrive at the final field for New Year's Day.  Maybe several Match Play events at interesting venues throughout a season could fill the bill of more match play with a final field of 16 or 32?

[kilfara]

You know, in tennis, they play nothing but matchplay...and while the best players in the world sometimes get knocked out of their tournaments in the first round, they win enough tournaments to confirm that they are the best players in the world. How many matchplay tournaments out of 30 in a year do you think Tiger would win? How many matchplay majors out of four? The "problem" with matchplay, if you want to call it that, is that it reduces "in any given week" to "on any given day" - you can't shoot 72 in the first round to come back and win - but over the long haul, I think the best players would tend to win roughly the same number of tournaments that they do now.

How's this for a possible solution to ABC's woes: next year, instead of putting everyone into the bracket strictly by seedings (1 v 64, 2 v 63, etc.), make the draw completely random. Or even better, do the draw for each round only after the completion of the previous round (like they do in most soccer competitions like the FA Cup in England). It's not necessarily as fair as the current method - which is only fair if you think that seedings can determined in matchplay by one's strokeplay record - but this way you have a chance of getting marquee matchups in the early rounds as well as the later ones. Just a thought...

Cheers,
Darren

[THuckaby2]

DK - I HAVE read "Down the Fairway" - I own it.  But I read it many years ago... I knew I couldn't come up with an original thought - I had to have been subconsciously remembering this when I came up with this gem yesterday.

Back to my hovel I return....

TH

[Dan Kelly]

Shivas --

At the risk of seeming "in vogue" (ever) or "gaga" (about anything):

I think you're right about everything, except...

When it comes to the PGA Tour, "terribly inconsistent" would be a good thing, in my view.

[Scott_Burroughs]

FYI, Shivas.  Darren (Kilfara) has been on this site for quite some time, just not posting much lately.

When a few GCAers were at Bandon/Pacific Dunes last year, someone from his group mentioned that he had gone out for a 3rd round that day.

[Richard_Goodale]

Hey Scott.  Don't forget that I went out for that third round with Darren, and he was only spotting me 27 years!

In terms of the topic, it seems to me that the field of 64 and the 18-hole format are always going to be "problems" in that the nature of match-play golf is such that there will always be uspsets in this format, and the larger field means that you are going to have a lot of Fulkes and Sutherlands and Izawas in the field.

If I were the powers that be I'd:

1.  Cut the field to 40
2.  On day one have numbers 9-40 play 2 rounds of 18 hole matches to winnow down to 8 players
3.  Day 2 play two 18 holes matches with the 8 survivors and numbers 1-8 seeds.  To winnow down to 4 players
4.  Saturday have 2 36-hole matches to select the finalists
5.  Sunday have a 36-hoie final plus a 36-hole match for 3rd place.
6.  Don't even try to cover days 1 and 2 live.  Show highlights of the interesting matches in a 2-hour evening show.

Just a thought.

[THuckaby2]

Rich:  at first glance that sounded good, with my only issue that it's unlikely the PGA TOUR would give up TV money for first two days.

But I'm confused by your proposal.

You have 33-48 playing two rounds to winnow down to 8 players.  That's 16 players only... two rounds of 18 hole matches winnows that down to 4 remaining players...

Then you say they are to play 1-8, and it works down from there.

But what happened to 9-32?

I assume I am missing something.  Please do clarify.  This is a hot button for me right now as I discuss issues among devotees of my other passion, college basketball!

TH

[Richard_Goodale]

Tom

I have edited the offending post which contained numerous uncharacteristic tyops, both verbal and numerical.  Does it make sense now?  It's actually an expanded version of how they do the World Match Play.

Rich

[THuckaby2]

Rich:  WHEW!

Just consider this re your reputation:  The way it was before , I could clearly see that 9-32 were missing and that nothing seemed to add up, but rather than think you made any errors, I thought you had taken this to some higher scheme of mathematics as beyond me as King Cnut was in terms of history!

Your revised format makes great sense to me and would indeed be an improvement.

TH

[TEPaul]

The numerical draw used to format match play tournaments probably works as well as any that could be found to preserve the good players throughout a match play tournament. All that sort of presupposes that the "seeding" is done as accurately as can be though.

Single rounds are just inherently more dangerous to even the best players compared to 36, 54 or 72 hole stroke play formats.

In this particular context 36, 54 or 72 hole MATCH play formats would tend to be much less dangerous to a good player! Unfortunately such a thing in a 64 player draw Match play tournament of 72 holes each would last approximately 3 1/2 to 4 weeks!

Some of the early US Amateurs my Dad played in were draws  of 128 players. To win that's 7 victories. That's pretty cool really and I was talking to him once about those early marathons. He felt that even the best players on their games throughout such a marathon pretty much felt you had to play good, putt good and not only get the luck but get it at just the right time!

[JohnV]

In 63 years that the US Amateur had a stroke play qualifier before match play, on 12 of the 63 medalists went on to win the Championship.  There is a well known term for that, "The Curse of the Medalist."  Frequently the 64th seed will beat the medalist in amateur events.

One of the perks of being medalist is that your match is always the first one of the day, unless there was a playoff for the last spot that holds you up the first day.  The Match Play doesn't use that format, giving in to TV and having the #1 seed tee off after most of the field had played.

I've been hearing that Southern California hasn't had a lot of rain this year.  Why are the greens so soft at La Costa?  They were firm at Torrey Pines(not surprising since they were new) and at Riviera.  The rough looks sparse so all I can think is that they are overwatering the greens.  Real bright when you have bumpy greens to start with.

[redanman (Guest)]

Personally, I have enjoyed it immensely so far.

Good match play is good theatre.

[Peter Galea]

Personally, I have enjoyed it immensely so far.

Good match play is good theatre.

Agreed, I love watching it. There's much more strategy in match play aside from shot execution.

[TEPaul]

I haven't watched any of this Accenture (Acupuncture) Match Play Championship but I was just looking over the final 8 and I kinda like the way this draw has evolved.

It seems to me that at least three of the final four groups have broken down into matches between a sort of "stroke play mentality" touring pro against an opponent that has the true "shot makers" mentality of really great match play theater!

It will be interesting to see how those three matches pan out!

[Mark_Fine]

Guys,
I posted this on another thread but thought it best fit here.

Check out the names of the winners of the PGA and other great tournaments of the past when they were played as Match Play formats.  Didn't many of the greatest players some how (but not always) manage to win them?  How many of Bobby Jones wins were in match play formats?  

I think just because Tiger gets knocked out, everyone thinks the "best" player "isn't identified".  The fact is, Tiger isn't playing his best right now and that's why he lost.  He hasn't won in stroke play either has he?  

These guys are all just that good and it's only a stroke here or there that separates all of them!  The seeding (just like in your own club championship tournaments) means little in match play.  

Furthermore, there is nothing wrong with the course and format is fine.  Why are so many of us trying to ELIMINATE LUCK from the game??  This is what golf is all about isn't it?  

Just my opinion!
Mark