Information about Match Play

Match play is a scoring system for golf (compare to stroke play). In the world of men's professional golf, there are a small number of notable match play tournaments including the biennial Ryder Cup for teams representing the USA and Europe; the biennial Presidents Cup for teams representing the USA and International (non-European) players; the WGC-Accenture World Matchplay Championship; and the older HSBC World Matchplay Championship, an invitational event which is now part of the European Tour.

Women's professional golf had no event directly comparable to the Accenture Championship until the HSBC Women's World Match Play Championship was introduced in 2005. It also has an event analogous to the Ryder Cup, the Solheim Cup. The U.S. Amateur Championships for both men and women are conducted with two rounds of stroke play to cut the field to 64, and then proceeds to a single-elimination match play tournament. All elimination matches are 18 holes except for the final, which is 36 holes. The PGA Championship, one of the majors, changed from a match play event to a stroke play event in 1958.

Unlike stroke play, in which the unit of scoring is the stroke, in match play the unit of scoring is the hole. On each hole, the most that can be gained is one point. Golfers play as normal. The golfer with the lowest score on a given hole receives one point. If the golfers tie, then the hole is halved.

Match play scores of a game in progress are kept with a running tally. At the start of a match, the score is "all square" or tied. The score is then recorded in terms of one player's lead over another player. For example, if Player A has won 3 holes, Player B has won 1 hole and they have halved 2 (or any number of) holes, Player A is said to be leading, "2-up" (3 holes won minus 1 hole lost).

A team that is leading by N holes with N holes remaining is said to be "dormie-N", or simply "dormie", meaning that they need one more halved hole to win the match (or alternately, that the other team must win all the remaining holes outright in order to halve the match).

The final score of a match play event is listed in one of three ways:

• 1 hole or 2 holes, meaning that all 18 holes were played and that the winner was ahead by either one or two holes.
• M and N, where M is either one or two greater than N, meaning that (18 - N) holes were played, and the winning player was leading by M holes. This indicates that the winner was ahead by more holes than the number of holes left to play, so the match does not need to be finished. The greatest margin of victory a player can have in an 18-hole match is 10 and 8, which occurs when he wins the first 10 holes. For example, if the score of a match is "4&2", then the pair played 16 holes and the margin of victory was 4 holes.
• at the Xth hole, where X is greater than 18. This indicates that the players were all square after 18 holes and played sudden death for (X - 18) more holes until one player won a hole outright. In the Ryder Cup Matches and other similar team events, the match is not finished this way, and the teams each receive a half point. For tournament play this would not be suitable.

Golfers can employ a slightly different strategy during a match play event, since the scoring is different. The situation in the match and the outcome of each shot already played on a hole will both be taken into account. On the whole match play encourages more aggressive play, especially at the professional level, where a par is not usually good enough to win a hole. Since a very poor result for a hole is no worse than a slightly-below-average result when playing against an opponent with an average score, it often makes sense to accept the higher risk connected with aggressive tactics. However, in some circumstances players will be especially cautious in match play. For instance, one may choose to play more conservatively if the opponent has hit a poor tee shot or is otherwise under pressure to compensate a poor start on a particular hole, reasoning that there is a good chance to win the hole with an average result.

See also

• Golf glossary