In light of the recent drama from across the pond at the British Open, a rather unusual procedure involving tie-breaking was in the world spotlight. Rule 33-6 in the Rules of Golf states that the committee must announce before a competition starts how a halved match or a tie in stroke play be decided. The rules do not specify how to run a playoff per se, they simply state that you can not decide a tie in match play with stroke play and vise versa. However, they do provide suggestions on how to determine a winner.
Appendix I: Part C of the Rules of Golf deals with Conditions of Competition, and pages 111-112 more specifically deal with breaking ties. The USGA recommends that all stroke play competitions that end in a tie be decided by an 18 hole playoff. They recognize, though, that this is not always feasible and also state that a smaller number of holes, or a hole-by-hole sudden death playoff (this is the most commonly used format) would be acceptable as well. And in the case that none of these work, then a scorecard playoff be used.
For all Colorado Golf Association Championships, we use the hole-by-hole sudden death format. This is mostly because of course restrictions and weather concerns. And for CGA qualifiers, we use the scorecard matching method that the USGA suggests. In this format, the player with the lowest score for the last nine holes decides the winner. If that does not break the tie, then we use the last six, then the last three, then the last hole. If none of these methods decide the winner, we decide by lot (e.g. flip a coin).
At last week’s British Open Championship on the very difficult Carnoustie Golf Links, a collapse by Sergio Garcia and Padraig Harrington on the 18th hole landed themselves in a playoff for the Clarett Jug. They do not use the sudden death format that the CGA and most other events use, but a four-hole aggregate playoff. The committee decided to use holes 1, 16-18, perfectly acceptable as the committee can decide which holes are used for the playoff. This unique format allows a player to have a bad hole, just as Sergio did on #1, and still have a chance to win. Knowing that anything that can happen on the three finishing holes at Carnoustie (especially the 18th), this was a very exciting playoff to watch. So the two shot lead that Padraig had on the 18th (4th Playoff hole) was by no means out of reach for Sergio. And as we all got to see it proved to be just enough, but not without a lot of excitement.
Whether the committee chooses the18-hole format that the US Open and Women’s Open uses, the smaller number of holes format that the British Open and PGA Championship uses, or the sudden death format that the Masters and CGA uses, you are always in for an exciting playoff finish!
