The WGC-Dell Technologies Match Play, generically known as the WGC Match Play or WGC Match Play Championship, is one of the PGA Tour's more unique events because it's a match play format event. I'd have to look it up to confirm, but I'm pretty sure this is the only match play event on the Tour schedule. The vast majority of PGA Tour events are stroke play format. Then there are different ones like this and the Zurich Classic of New Orleans which is a two-man team event. Most golf fans associate match play with the Ryder Cup, Presidents Cup, US Amateur, and British Amateur.
This tournament has a bracket, much like the NCAA men's and women's basketball tournaments. Like the NCAA tournaments, this tournament has a field of 64 (technically, the NCAA men's tournament has 68 teams with four play-in games, but you know what I mean). The difference between this tournament and the college basketball tournaments is the single-elimination matches don't begin until the round of 16 (Sweet 16). The way the WGC Match Play field of 64 players is reduced to 16 players is through four-man group round-robin matches over the first three days of the tournament (kind of like FIFA World Cup group play).
On that note, because of the format and the number of players involved, this tournament takes one day longer than the typical four-day Tour event. It goes Wednesday-Sunday instead of Thursday-Sunday. The "Sweet 16" and "Elite 8" matches are played on Saturday with the "Final Four," third-place "consolation," and championship matches played on Sunday. This means some guys will play more than the typical 72 holes (assuming they made the cut). Seedings are based on where every player is ranked in the Official World Golf Ranking.
Since 2016, this event has been held annually at Austin Country Club in March -- coincidentally, around the same time as March Madness. Funny how that worked out. The match play format is interesting to me because it can produce intriguing matchups and unexpected results. The strategy for match play is different from stroke play because it's a one-on-one competition where the player doesn't have to be better than the field, but just better than the guy he's matched up against at that moment. Here's a crazy stat: In 2011, Rory McIlroy lost to Ben Crane, 8 and 7, back when this tournament was played at Dove Mountain in Arizona.
Matt Kuchar has the second-most WGC Match Play wins (34) of all time. Tiger Woods has won this event three times (2003, 2004, 2008) and Australians Geoff Ogilvy and Jason Day have both won twice. Congratulations to this year's champion, Billy Horschel. He took home the $1,820,000 winner's share of the $10,500,000 purse. Both amounts are currently tied for the fourth-largest on Tour in their respective categories.
One last thing - at this year's tournament, Sergio Garcia had a walk-off hole-in-one to win his sudden death playoff against Lee Westwood. Check it out here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=urm-lZXpNks. read more