It all began on a misty morning at the Wentworth Club near London, Friday 9th October 1964 to be precise, the brainchild of the late Mark H McCormack, founder of IMG for three days of match play golf, pitching eight of the best golfers in the world is what many consider to be the purest form of golf, man-against-man, head-to-head.
Match play golf was given something of a shot in the arm in 1927 when English seed merchant and golf enthusiast Samuel Ryder put up the small gold cup for a bi-annual match between Great Britain and the USA, the USA winning handsomely, American stars Walter Hagen and Gene Sarazen proving just to strong for their transatlantic rivals.
And so, match play and the Ryder Cup was the standard bearer for match play golf, a pale shadow of the global showcase it is today. But in 1964 Mark H McCormack revitalized the match play format, taking eight of his stable of stars to the Wentworth Club near London for what was to become not simply an annual golf championship but a firm fixture on the world sporting calendar.
The record books, now 47-years-old reveal that American star Arnold Palmer, the reigning US Masters champion defeated homespun Englishman Neil Coles by 2&1, winning the princely sum of £5,000 from a total prize purse of just £16,000; how times have changed.
Palmer – and his South African IMG stable mate Gary Player were to dominate the early years of the autumnal showpiece at Wentworth, the pair sharing the first five titles before the third member of golf’s most famous triumvirate, Jack Nicklaus took the title in 1970.
Speaking ahead of the 2009 Volvo World Match Play Championship – the first to be staged in his native country, Seve Ballesteros, whose Foundation was the event’s official charity said, “The World Match Play Championship is very special to me – it is a tournament I won five times and I never lost in a final,” adding, “I am so happy this great tournament has moved to Spain.”
A look back down the Roll of Honour reveals just how many great golfers won the World Match Play Championship; in addition the ‘Big 3,’ Greg Norman, the ‘Great White Shark,’ conjoured-up a hat-trick of wins, as did Ian Woosnam, Nick Faldo a brace.
But, when it comes to the recent history of the World Match Play Championship – not to be confused with the WGC Accenture Match Play, which was only inaugurated in 1999 – one name and one name only stands out from the crowd.
‘Ernie’ Els won the first of a remarkable seven World Match Play Championship titles at Wentworth in 1994, triggering the first-ever three-in-a-row.
After a hiatus of five years without winning what many considered to be Ernie’s ‘home’ championship – the man they call the ‘Big Easy’ was back with a bang, another three-in-a-row from 2002 to 2004 won just over his garden wall, a seventh secured in 2007, which proved to be the last of 44 magnificent match plays over Wentworth’s world-famous West Course.
“To win this tournament seven times is amazing,” said the South African, admitting, “I never thought I would do that, it’s amazing, wonderful,” adding, “This is a very important tournament to me and my career. “
“It’s very satisfying to win any tournament but I’ve always been a fan of this kind of match play event,” he continued, explaining, “It’s great that Volvo, which has been such a huge sponsor of the European Tour has taken over the tournament and maybe I’ll get the opportunity one day to win an eighth title.”
Indeed, when Volvo took over the event in 2009, the Swedish automotive brand began ringing the changes, moving it to the spectacular and self-contained, five-star golf resort of Finca Cortesín, in Andalucía, Spain, with Englishman Ross Fisher, who, ironically cut his teeth at Wentworth emerged as the champion over a truly world class field to win the first prize of €750,000 (Approx. £650,000), which is exactly 130-times more than Arnold Palmer won back in 1964.
Fisher, closed-out the tenacious American Anthony Kim in a 36 hole final by 4&3 after playing an amazing 126 holes of golf in just four days over the demanding Finca Cortesín course, saying, “I'm absolutely ecstatic. It [was] a long, grueling week, this course was very physically demanding.”
Now, Fisher is ready – and willing to defend his title. “I’m really looking forward to it,” said the man who became just the 24th man to hold the world’s most prestigious match play title, adding, “It’s not going to be easy, a bigger field of 24, some of the best players in world golf, but if you can’t get up for a title defence like this, you should not be playing professional golf.”
19th – 22nd May is the new date for the Volvo World Match Play Championship and it promises to be the finest field in the 45-year history of golf’s most evocative individual match play championship.
www.volvoworldmatchplay.com / www.fincacortesin.com
Match Play Explained
- The term ‘Match Play’ refers to the format of golf where player takes on player, as opposed to ‘stroke play’ where each player takes on the golf course and the winner is the man or woman who has the lowest aggregate score after a set number of rounds. Each hole is, in effect, a competition in its own right, the player with the lesser number of strokes winning that hole.
- in ‘Match Play,’ it is the player who wins the most number of holes over the duration of the match, normally 18 or 36 holes who wins the match.
- In the Volvo World Match Play Championship, there are eight groups of three players, each golfer in each group playing the other and the leading two players from each group progress to the knock-out stages.
- In each group match, the winner will collect two points, the loser nil, and if any match is tied after 18 holes, they will share a single point each.
- The quarter-finals, which will be played on Saturday 21st May are straight knock-out, the man who wins the most holes progressing to Sunday’s semi-finals.
- The winners of each semi-final will progress to the Volvo World Match Play Championship Final, played over 18 holes on the afternoon of Sunday 22nd May, with the champion earning a record €800,000 (Approx. £690,000 / US$1.1million).
- In the quarter-finals, semi-finals and final, if a match is ‘all square’ after 18 holes, a sudden-death play-off will take place until a winner emerges.
- It is perfectly possible for a player to have the lower number of strokes, but still lose the match if his opponent wins more holes.
- The Match Play format tends to lead to a more attacking and dramatic style of play, because if a player loses a hole due to a high score on that hole, he can still go on to win the match by winning more holes than his opponent.
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Match Play golf has a number of terms that are unique to the format.
- ‘Gimme’ means a normally short putt that is conceded by a player’s opponent, meaning he does not need to hole out.
- ‘Dormie’ refers to when a player is so many holes in front with that number of holes left to play, eg 2-up with two to play. However, he has not won because if his opponent wins both those holes to end up tied, either man can win the play-off.
- ‘All Square’ is when two players have won an identical number of holes, either at any stage during the match or when they complete 18 holes.
- ‘Extra Holes’ means a match has ended ‘All Square’ and the players must then take part in a sudden-death play-off, the first man to lose a hole deemed the loser.
- 4 & 3, or 2 & 1 refers to the score at the end of a match where the winner has won more holes than are left, meaning his opponent cannot win the match. For example, a player may be 4-up with three to play (4&3) or 2-up with one to play (2&1)
- 1-up or 2-up is the score at the end of a close match, which goes all the way to the 18th hole, where the winner wins the 18th either from a position of ‘Dormie-one,’ with one to play to go 2-up, or, having been ‘All Square’ going down the last to win 1-up.
- Traditional golfing terms such as ‘Par,’ Birdie’ ‘Bogey’ or ‘Eagle’ are largely irrelevant in Match Play as it is each player’s score compared to his opponent’s rather than to Par that wins / ties or loses the hole.
