WGC Match Play: Гольф турнирінің тарихы мен форматы

One of the annual World Golf Championships

The WGC Match Play, titled in later years as the WGC Dell Technologies Match Play for sponsorship reasons, was a professional men's golf tournament that had been held since 1999. It was the only one of the World Golf Championships to have been contested using the match play format. From 2016 until its final year in 2023, it was held at the Austin Country Club in Austin, Texas, United States. Previous names include WGC Dell Match Play (2015), WGC Cadillac Match Play (2014), WGC Accenture Match Play Championship (2001–2013), and WGC Andersen Consulting Match Play Championship (1999–2000). Before moving to Austin it had been hosted in Arizona eight times, California eight times, and Australia once. It is sanctioned and organized by the International Federation of PGA Tours and the prize money is official money on the PGA Tour, the European Tour and the Japan Golf Tour. Tiger Woods has the record number of wins with three. The winner receives a Wedgwood trophy named the Walter Hagen Cup.

The match play format fell out of favor in professional individual golf tournaments with the growth of television. The two major match play tournaments in the pre TV era were the PGA Championship, which converted to stroke play format in 1958, and the British PGA Matchplay Championship which faced a slow decline after the introduction of the British PGA Championship in 1955 (which had a stroke play format), and eventually became defunct in 1979. Match play became mainly associated with amateur tournaments, and team tournaments such as the Ryder Cup. Despite not being popular with television companies, and often requiring more rounds to be played by a player than a stroke play event, the format was still respected as offering a different challenge than stroke play. At the end of the 1990s, there were two significant unofficial match play tournaments, the relatively new Andersen Consulting World Championship of Golf, which had a 32 man field with the finals played in Arizona, and the much older World Match Play Championship, which had a field of 16 players or less and was played in England.

When the World Golf Championships were formed in 1999, it was decided one of the events would be held in match play format, which meant the return of an official match play event on the PGA Tour and the European Tour. The WGC Andersen Consulting Match Play was in effect the successor of the Andersen Consulting World Championship of Golf, which was discontinued. The format of the new WGC competition was a straight knock out tournament involving the top 64 players in the Official World Golf Ranking, with each match played over 18 holes, except the final which was played over 36 holes. The first two events were held in February 1999 and 2000 at the La Costa Resort and Spa in southern California, The following year the tournament returned to La Costa Resort and Spa in Southern California where it remained until 2006. Also in 2011, the format of the final was reduced to 18 holes instead of 36 holes, similar to the other rounds of the tournament.

As well as the intermittent weather issues in Dove Mountain, the performance of the WGC Match Play was a concern for other reasons, with Rex Hoggard of the Golf Channel remarking "Since 2007, when the Tour uprooted the Match Play from La Costa for the Tucson highlands, the galleries have been thin, the golf courses have been tolerated and the Sundays have been largely undistinguished". In 2015 the tournament underwent a revamp, moving to TPC Harding Park, a municipal course owned by the city and county of San Francisco, and became sponsored by Cadillac (who also sponsored the WGC Championship). The tournament moved from February to April 27 – May 3, the week prior to The Players Championship. The structure was changed so the field was split into 16 four player groups played on Wednesday, Thursday and Friday, with the player with the best record advancing. The four knockout rounds are then split over Saturday and Sunday. The format ensured that spectators could guarantee to see the entire field on the first three days, and some coverage would occur in primetime in the East Coast of the United States. After one year in California, the tournament moved to March with a new long term home and sponsor, the Austin Country Club in Texas, and Dell (which is headquartered in greater Austin area). The following year, as a result of the title sponsor's involvement in a merger the tournament became known as the WGC Dell Technologies Match Play. In 2015, Jason Day became the third player to win multiple WGC Match Plays, In March 2023, it was announced by the PGA Tour that the event would end following the 2023 edition.