Fin para los torneos match play (SPA - ENG)

End for match play tournaments

I am talking about golf again, this exciting sport that many consider "for old people" or boring and that in general is said because they have never played it.

It is most common to watch on TV, listen to or read summaries of the important tournaments that are held weekly and mainly in the United States and to a lesser extent in Europe, they are the two most important venues for this sport in the world and where the main figures. Now a new league called LIV has begun to mediate, which has tempted very important figures with exorbitant prizes, among which some former world number one stand out, but I will talk about it another time.

The vast majority of tournaments are played in the medal play mode, which is the best known; a grid of more than one hundred participants that takes place in four days, at the end of the second day of competition an elimination is made and all those who are beyond the score defined as the "cut" is left out, a figure that is calculated based on to different parameters, the last two days of competition are played by all those who remain and the one who has made the lowest score for the sum of the four days wins.

Notwithstanding what was mentioned in the previous paragraph, there are several other ways to play this beautiful sport: four-ball, lagoons and match play, among other variants. Some of them are practiced by many fans.

Precisely in this week that has just ended, the only tournament in match play format that remained in force on the PGA circuit was held and I mention the word "remained" because it has been announced that this very important tournament will not be played again for the moment, and that sounds like never again.

Let's see how it develops in this format: a grid formed by rules similar to those of any other tournament is put together, the best in the ranking, the winner of the tournament in the previous year, and some other ways of classifying. Two zones are formed and groups within them and the game is played in a similar way to the World Cup, first of all, four players per group who play in pairs, the one who wins adds one point, and the one who loses zero, so That way the first two remain to move on to the next phase. The entire tournament is played by two competitors and except in that first group stage, it is by direct elimination, the one who wins goes to the next round and the one who loses goes home except for the semifinals where the winners play for the title and the losers for that game that nobody wants to play: third place.

It is a very entertaining and strategic modality since the one chosen by each player to face a hole changes depending on some factors that do not intervene in the game in medal play modality, the result up to the previous hole and the rival's shot greatly influence the decision to execute one shot or another.

This type of strategy does not occur in the medal play modality because in most cases a player does not play alone with the partner who is next to him, he plays against many others of whom he only finds out at the end of each hole as he has told them. gone, if they have an advantage or on the contrary, He has it. It has happened and will continue to happen that a player who was not among the first has attacked with an excellent score and has won the tournament without those who had an advantage at the beginning of the last day being able to do anything to contain it.

The biggest drawback of the match play modality is that it takes several more days to complete a tournament than in the medal play modality, it is impossible for a player to complete more than 2 games in the same day, they do not give daylight times and of course, the pressure, concentration, and fatigue are opposed to that possibility. Therefore, it has been decided that the Dell Technologies Match Play tournament that ended yesterday with the surprise victory of Sam Burns over another surprise finalist, Cameron Young, not so much because they cannot win but because both beat the number 1 in their semifinal matches and 3 in the world respectively, it has been the last one that is carried out under the rules of match play and for next year there will be none left.

Although there are a couple of exceptions that are not part of any annual calendar but are two matches between the United States and Europe, the first and which is known as the Ryder Cup, and the United States against the rest of the world known as the Presidents Cup. These tournaments that are played every two years alternately, there is a segment of the competition where some matches take place in match-play mode and from what I know, it will continue to exist. They are team tournaments and the one that obtains the highest amount of points in all the matches played under any modality wins.

It is a pity that more tournaments are not played in this interesting modality, although the reasons given by the PGA are understandable.