Match Play Golf Tournament

“The International Golf Club & Resort” is New England’s Premier Golf, Dining & Lodging Destination. The International is located in picturesque Bolton, the apple capital of Massachusetts. During the short ride out to The International, you feel the city, the job and all the stresses of life just melt away. And when you pull into the picturesque property, you have arrived, a million miles from anywhere, but only 45 minutes from Boston. The Lodge & Spa at The International is open to the public. During a stay at The International Lodge, you are privileged to play either, or both, of our championship courses during select tee times. Other amenities at The International include day and evening dining at The Fireplace Room featuring Chef Joseph Brenner, relaxation and yoga in our Spa, and golf conditioning with the latest training equipment in our Fitness Center. The International Golf Club continues to be recognized as one of the most innovative and forward thinking clubs in New England. We are now offering creative and flexible membership programs, making The International more accessible than ever before. Our newest offering caters exclusively to corporate executives, with an entirely new approach to corporate membership! To be clear, there are exactly five ways play the Golf Courses at The International. You can join as a Golf Member, stay in the lodge, host an event of some kind, social or business, or be our guest at the Rick Smith Golf Academy or be a guest at the Taylor Made performance lab. The Fireplace Room restaurant is open to the public for both lunch and dinner. Chef Brenner serves as Culinary Director of the resort and Executive Chef of the Fireplace Room restaurant. Chef Brenner spent the last 16 years working side by side world renowned, celebrity chef Todd English, launching successful brands and restaurant concepts around the world. Our goal with Chef Brenner is to create a true culinary destination as part of our world class golf destination vision. World class golf deserves world class instruction. We are pleased to announce the arrival of the Rick Smith Golf Academy to The International, arriving this Spring 2011. Rick has been recognized as one of the top instructors in the world and we are pleased to have him open only his third golf academy in the US, here at The International. And for something completely different, check out the Taylor Made Performance Lab for a state of the art golf club fitting experience. The Rick Smith Golf Academy and the Taylor Made Performance Lab are available to Lodge guests and open to the public. Anyone can host an event at The International, as we continue to make The International accessible to more people than ever before. For your next special event, our professional team will custom design your function to your exacting standards. From wedding celebrations, to corporate retreats, corporate board meetings and of course, golf tournaments. The International is the go-to destination for successful events, especially charity golf tournaments. And the “piece de resistance,” all event and meeting guests have golfing privileges during select tee times, while here on property. The International offers a variety of Golf, Spa and/or Dining Vacation Packages, year-round. Find out more about Guest Packages and overnight Lodging at The International. Match play and stroke play are considered the most popular and essential forms of scoring in a golf tournament. In match play the number of strokes the player needs to hole out is not important, the factor that does matter is that they use fewer stokes to hole the ball when compared to the person/team they are competing against. There are literally hundreds of variations on this type of play, after all golf has been around for a very long time which has given players plenty of attempts at developing new scoring systems. Since there are so many variations on this type of play the important thing is to grasp the basic idea of match play, discussing two different types of match play should help most people get the general idea of how a round should go. Singles match play is a type of competition involving two players, each players tries to make hole out in the fewest number of strokes on a given hole, the player with the least amount of strokes on a hole wins that hole. For example, player A shoots 5 on a hole while player B shoots 4, player B would be awarded this hole and take a one nothing lead in the round. Many times both players will have the same score on a hole, in this scenario the hole is “halved”, basically each player is awarded half a hole meaning they have tied. The player who wins the most holes during the course of the round is declared the winner, in the event of a tie, or the match being “all square, after eighteen holes of golf the two people would then go to extra holes. The first person to win a hole after the initial eighteen is then declared the winner. Fourball match play allows a two person team to compete against another two person team. Each player on the two person team will play their own ball, the lowest score of the team will be the one recorded, the team with the lowest score on each hole is awarded the hole, the team winning the most during the round is considered the winner. For example Tom and Bob are playing against Dick and Jane, Tom records a 5 and Bob shoots a 4, the score for the first team is 4. Dick proceeds to score a 6 and Jane shoots a 5 on the same hole, the score for team two is 5. Since the first team score was a 4 and the second team shot a 5 the hole is awarded to the first team. Just like singles match play if the situation arises where both teams use the same number of strokes the hole would be halved between the two teams. Fourball match play can also be modified to allow for teams to use the alternate shot method of play. With this format player 1 hits the tee shot, player 2 hits the second shot, player one hits the third shot and so on until the ball is holed. The same rules apply however this adds an interesting twist. People familiar with the professional golf tournaments will recognize this format from the Ryder Cup.