A quick breakdown of the Volvo World Match Play Championship format:
• Match play golf competition over five days (Wednesday to Sunday) at The London Golf Club
• A 16 man playing field will be split into four groups of four, playing round robin matches over the first three days - one match per day
• Each player will play a minimum of three matches and a maximum of six
• All group matches played over 18 holes, but will conclude if one player is up by more holes than there are holes left to play
• Players are seeded according to their Official World Golf Ranking and drawn into a group so that the top four seeds are spread across each of the four groups.
• The four groups are named after the two co-founders of Volvo (Gustaf Larson and Assar Gabrielsson), the founder of IMG (Mark McCormack) and Arnold Palmer
• Points are awarded based upon a win (2), tie (1) or loss (0)
• If, two or more players are tied on points after all matches are played, then their specific head to head match result will be used to determine which player is placed higher in the group. After which, if two or more players are still tied for one of the two qualifying positions within the group then those players will compete in a hole-by-hole play-off*
• The top two from each group will progress to the knock-out stage, reducing the field to eight
• The winner of Palmer group playing the runner-up of McCormack group and vice-versa, with the winners of these matches meeting each other in the semi-finals. The two Volvo co-founder groups are paired together correspondingly
• The knock-out stage is played over the weekend, with the quarter finals taking place on the Saturday the remaining two rounds on the Sunday
Wednesday - Group matches - 18 holes per day
Thursday - Group matches - 18 holes per day
Friday - Group matches - 18 holes per day
Saturday - Quarter Final matches
Sunday AM - Semi Finals matches
Sunday PM - Final and third place play-off matches
- If all four players are tied in their respective group then all four players shall contest a hole-by-hole play-off
NB. The play-off criteria are only used to determine the first two places within the group.
