Match Play Tournament

CLICK HERE FOR OFF COURSE MATCH PLAY STANDINGS

The Match Play tournament will begin April 14th and conclude with a club champion on the last scheduled club tournament in October. There are only a few weeks left to get the chinks, chilly-dips, whiffs, yips, and shanks out of our games.

The rounds will be 9 hole matches and are designed to be played before or after work during the week. If that proves to be a problem weekends will work. The bracket will be posted on at:
http://www.offcoursegolf.org/match-play-results/match-play-results.html and will be updated on a round by round basis approximately every two weeks.

Competitors are to make every effort to contact each other and agree on a course and time to play their match. Any course that has a USGA course rating and slope will work.

This is a net tournament and as such the lower handicapper will be giving strokes to the higher handicapper in each match. It will take a little thinking to do it right and I will attempt to explain in the simplest term I can.

Golfer A has a15 handicap and golfer B is a 24 handicap but for the purposes of the match play tournament golfer B will be limited to a 20. Therefore, golfer A would give 5 strokes to golfer B and those would be given on the 5 lowest ranked holes on the course. Go ahead and determine which holes that strokes will be given as if you were playing a 18 hole round and only use the strokes that come into play on the holes you are playing.

Using the scorecard below from Tukwila as an example. Golfer A would be giving strokes to golfer B on holes number 16, 4, 14, 2, and 12 (handicap ranking 1 through 5) if you were playing a 18 hole match. In a nine hole events, as is our case golfer B would get strokes on holes number 4 and 2 if you played the front nine and 16, 14 and 12 if you played the back.

 

Remember that your Handicap Index is not your course handicap. Your index is used to calculate your COURSE handicap as follows: Multiply your index by the course Slope and divide the sum by 113. Round off to the nearest whole number. That is your COURSE HANDICAP.

· Handicap Index X Slope / 113 = Course Handicap (after rounding off to nearest whole number)

Now that we have established how to determine your course handicap and how stokes are given and received we will move on to how to win a hole and a match.

To win a hole the golfer with the lowest score after the stokes have been taken into account will win the hole and receive a point for that win.

Ties are worthless and no points are given to either player nor do the points carryover to the next hole.

The winner of a match is declared when a player has more points than holes left to play. Please report you match results as follows: Chapman beats Moore 4/3 meaning Chapman had 4 points with 3 holes left to play.

In the event of a tie at the end of a 9 or 18 hole match the winner will be determined by the (you guessed it) the fewest number of putts taken during the round. As further clarification as to what a putt is a putt is only a putt if it is on the green. Not from the fringe or even the fairway if you use a putter. In other words it is only a putt if you are able to mark you ball, which can only be done on the green.

Every one needs to familiarize themselves with the USGA rules of golf that spell out the various penalties that result in an automatic loss of hole. There are several. These books can be picked up at most pro shops or discount golf shops. I would strongly recommend that someone in the match have one in the bag for quick reference.

If all else fails you can just keep your scorecards and the stories that go along with them and send them in for a ruling by the handicap chairman. Match play results should be sent to Carl at cpeek@surveytech.com. Remember to check the website for the next match you are to play every three weeks.

Now that we have all been enlightened to the basics of match play lets all have a great time beating the crap out of each other and have a lot of laughs doing it typical “off-course” style.