This tournament is a variant on the current conference and
NCAA tournaments in American “March Madness.” I rather like the chaotic nature
of self-organised leagues and a final tournament...
Phase 1: Conference tournaments
In this phase, WGTers will self-organise single-elimination knockout
tournaments under match play mode. As long as the matches are played as scored
or challenge matches, the course and number of holes is up to you. There should
be at least six players in each tournament. The winner of each conference
tournament is automatically included in the final tournament. The tournament
organiser should provide the following information:
- The draw and results
- The name of the winning player and his/her preferred regional tournament (see below)
- The number of match play points won in the tournament by each
participant (the reason for this will become clear in a moment)
Please finish all conference tournaments by Wednesday 28
March.
Phase 2: Final tournament
The final single-elimination, knockout tournament will include all the winners of the
conference tournaments plus a number of invited players that bring the number
of players in the tournament to a full bracket (e.g. 16, 32, 64, 128...)
The invited players will have earned the highest number of
match play points in their conference tournaments. If there are a number of
players tied for the last spot in the bracket, they will all be included and
play-in games will be added.
There will be a Final Four held at the Hardest Holes course
(18) with the winners of four “regionals” of four players each at Oakmont,
Bethpage, St Georges, and Congressional (18 holes). If there are more than 16 players, “subregionals”
will be created.
All players will be seeded by the match play points won in
the conference tournaments. Players with the same number of points will be
separated by lots / coin flip.
The method of seeding the regionals:
- Overall seeds 1 to 4 = seed 1 in regional.
- Overall seeds 5 to 8 = seed 2 in regional
- Etc.
The placement of players into regionals will use the stated preference of the conference tournament winner for all of the players in the tournament from that conference. Players with a higher overall seed in each batch of 4 (1 to 4, 5 to 8 etc) will get their preference first.
The final tournament will have one round per week beginning 1 April.
Tips
You may wish to have a qualification or group phase to sort out seeding in your tournament. These matches do not count towards your match play points; only matches in the knockout tournament do.
Bigger tournaments and tournaments with higher tier players will give you a higher seed / possibilities of gaining invitations for non-tournament winners.