For the first three days of the WGC-Dell Technologies Match Play, the 64-player field competes in 16 four-player groups, with each player getting three matches in each group. At the end of those three rounds, the player in each group with the best record moves on to the Round of 16, when a bracket-style, single-elimination tournament begins.
For each match in round-robin play, a win earns 1 point, a loss nets 0 points and a tie earns 0.5 points for each player in the match. There is no sudden death after a match in group play under any circumstance. This change was made in an effort to make the group play matches on Friday, the final day of group play, more meaningful for more players.
However, in a number of groups, there will be a tie between two or more players for the group victory. Since only one player can move on from each group, the WGC Dell Technologies Match Play format requires a tiebreaker mechanism for determining the group winner.
How the WGC-Dell Technologies Match Play group play tiebreaker works
In those cases where there is a tie in the group, the PGA Tour, since 2016, has decided those ties with a sudden-death, stroke-play playoff in each group that goes off the first tee at host Austin Country Club.
The players in the sudden-death tiebreaker continue on until there's a winner, and that player then moves on to the knockout stage.
In the knockout stages, matches are played -- with extra holes, as needed -- until there is a winner.
