Dell Match Play – Golf’s Version of March Madness

The World Golf Championship – Dell Match Play is being played this weekend in Austin, TX….. But let me spell it out because this is not just another tournament.

• Think of this like the World Cup but for golf. Group play on Wednesday – Friday after that single elimination in a bracket format (fitting since it is also March Madness!).

How it works:

• It starts with the 64 highest ranked players in the World by the Official World Golf Rankings (‘OWGR’).
  • How they get the groups: The top 1-16 are classified as ‘A players,’ 17-32 are B, 33-48 are C and the last 16 are D (ending with 64). The A players are placed into 16 different groups the other 3 golfers (one from each of the 3 other groups B, C and D) are drawn randomly. Like an actual lottery ball of players which was aired live on Monday night. This determines the groups in round robin play.
• Round Robin means you will play everyone in your group. No matter what. So the first day (Wednesday) Player A plays Player B while Player C plays Player D. Then Player A plays Player C while Player B plays Player D on Thursday. And finally Player A plays Player D while Player B plays Player C on Friday. The winner of each group moves onto the weekend.
  • So even if Player A loses his first 2 matches (which means he will not move onto the weekend) he will still play Player D Friday.
  • If 2 golfers are tied at the end of group play, those players will play in a stroke-play, sudden death playoff to see who advances
  • If you’re thinking about attending, Friday will be the last day to see all the golfers compete.

• Single Elimination Bracket:
  • 16 players make it to the weekend and will be narrowed down to 4 players by the end of Saturday.
    • Exactly the same way that the Sweet 16 in basketball starts Thursday 3/28 and will be the Final Four teams by the end of the weekend.
  • The ‘Sweet 16’ players will play a head to head match, whoever wins moves onto the ‘Elite 8’ players and they play again still on Saturday. So each player should expect to play 36 holes on both Saturday and Sunday. But they have to win to keep playing.
    • Yes, they can technically win in less than 18 holes but expect to play the full 18. If you’re a spectator though, I wouldn’t park it on the 18th hole, you may not see who you want to see. Players who are up 2 through 17 (or more) will not play the 18th.
  • Even on Sunday, the ‘Final Four’ players will play 36 holes. The winners of the first match ups will go on to vie for the title. While the losers will play another round to determine who gets 3rd and 4th.

Scoring:

• Match play is scored by points per hole wins. So if Dustin Johnson plays Justin Rose (hypothetical) and DJ birdies hole 1 and Rose pars it, DJ wins 1 point through 1 hole. You would see the score ‘1 Up.’ If they both par the hole, they will split the points in half. You will see scores displayed this way. Once a player is up more holes than are left to play, the match is over.
  • Example: If you see a score such as 7&6 (like Bubba Watson’s winning score in 2018 year) it means Bubba won 7 holes with 6 holes to go. Another way of saying this is Bubba was 7 Up when he got to the 13th hole. Even if his opponent won all the remaining holes, he would still lose to Bubba. Therefore the match is over.
  • If you see a score such as 1 up it means that player won by 1 hole but finished the full 18 holes.

Facts and Stats:

• Defending Champion: Billy Horschel

• Where: Austin Country Club (Austin, TX)
• Purse: $12MM

• How to watch:

• • Wed 3/23
    • Dell Match Play- Round Robin rounds @ 1pm on Golf Channel
  • Thurs 3/24
    • Dell Match Play- Round Robin rounds @ 1pm on Golf Channel
  • Fri 3/25
    • Dell Match Play – Round Robin rounds @ 1pm on Golf Channel
  • Sat 3/26
    • Dell Match Play – Round of 16 & Elite 8
      • @ 9am on Golf Channel
      • @ 2pm on NBC
    • Sun 3/27
      • Dell Match Play – Final 2 rounds
        • @ 9am on Golf Channel
        • @ 2pm on NBC