The 2024 T-Mobile Match Play format is unique in golf because it's not only the rare match-play event in professional golf, but it's an individual match-play event with a qualifying component designed to help preserve the best players in the tournament from being eliminated in a potential fluke loss in the first three days of the event.
T-Mobile Match Play format
The T-Mobile Match Play format is new for 2024 and different from the prior years of the tournament, which is the only LPGA Tour match play tournament of the season. There is a starting field of 96 players, with the highest-ranked available players taking part in the field, as well as some sponsor exemptions who are added to complete the exact starting field.
For the first three days of the tournament, Wednesday through Friday, the T-Mobile Match Play is a stroke-play event, which turns into qualifying for the match play portion of the tournament on the weekend. In the first two days, all 96 players will compete in stroke-play rounds, with a cut to the top 65 players and ties after the second round. All players who make the 36-hole cut will be paid.
In Friday's third round, the top 65 players and ties will compete in a stroke-play round, with the top eight players from all three combined rounds earning spots in the match-play bracket.
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The leaderboard from the three rounds of stroke play are determining the matchups in the eight-player match-play bracket. On Saturday, the quarterfinals and semifinals are played as 18-hole match-play contests in a bracket-style tournament. The top player on the 54-hole stroke-play leaderboard is the No. 1 seed and will play the eighth-ranked player in the quarterfinals. It's like a traditional match-play bracket: 1 vs. 8, 2 vs. 7, 3 vs. 6 and 4 vs. 5.
A champion is crowned on Sunday afternoon in an 18-hole finish, and a third- and fourth-place finisher is decided by a consolation match.
The player who wins the final match is the winner and will earn the 2024 T-Mobile Match Play winner's share of the purse.
The winning player will get a two-season LPGA Tour exemption. The winner is exempt into other tournaments as well. The winner earns 500 Race to the CME Globe points.
T-Mobile Match Play playoff format
A playoff to settle any ties after 54 holes of stroke play or after a match is tied is a sudden-death format, with playoff holes being 18, 10 and then 18 repeated, played by any qualifying players. The players compete hole-by-hole until a winner is determined by a player scoring the lowest among the remaining players.