Tournament officials at the World Golf Championships-Cadillac Match Play announced today a new selection process for how the 16 groups of the event’s new group-play format will be determined.
As previously announced, the top seed for each of the four-player groups will be the top 16 players in order of their position in the Official World Golf Ranking. However, on Monday April 27, at 12pm Eastern Time, the remaining three players in each group will be determined by a blind draw from each of three pools depending on their standing in the OWGR.
The World Golf Championships-Cadillac Match Play comes to TPC Harding Park in San Francisco on April 27-May 3.
Under the guidance of the US PGA Tour Competitions Officials, the drawings will be from Golf Channel’s Golf Central studio in Orlando as part of a live telecast. The 90-minute selection show will televise the draw, analyse the groups and feature live shots from San Francisco to get comments and reaction.
With the new format in place the three remaining pools will be as follows:
Pool 1 – Players seeded 17-32
Pool 2 – Players seeded 33-48
Pool 3 – Players seeded 49-64
“We think this model for determining the 16 groups at the Cadillac Match Play will add intrigue and excitement to the event,” said US PGA Tour Executive Vice President, Chief of Operations Andy Pazder. “This system maintains competitive balance in each of the 16 groups, yet allows us to create discussion and conversation over a variety of platforms when the groups are announced. This will enable the Cadillac Match Play to have a unique live draw announcement.”
“I think this is a very cool concept,” said World Number One Rory McIlroy. “I’m excited to see who I end up paired against. The new group format as a whole is going to make for a very exciting three rounds.”
Each four-man group will play round-robin matches on Wednesday, Thursday and Friday. The player with the best record in each group advances to the Round of 16 for single-elimination match play (in the event of a two-way tie in a group, head-to-head results will be used as the tiebreaker; a three-way tie will require a sudden-death playoff).
After the three days of group play are completed, the Round of 16 will be played Saturday morning, followed by the quarter-finals on Saturday afternoon. The semi-finals will be Sunday morning, followed by the Championship Match and Consolation Match on Sunday afternoon. This means that fans are guaranteed to see the field in its entirety during the first three days of competition before players begin being eliminated.
