Match Play tournaments before 1999 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.
Early years in southern California and briefly Australia (1999–2006) 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.
Format changes, a year in California, then Austin (2015 onwards) 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. ==Structure==