Six City And The City

As the world super 6 perth prepares for its auspicious bow, will golf’s answer to T20 cricket invigorate the game’s tried and true tournament scene?

- Steve Keipert

The Defining Moment of the new ISPS Handa World Super 6 Perth tournament at Lake Karrinyup Country Club may not occur on Sunday. Curiously in golf, where we are fed a steady diet of last-day crescendos, any departure from the norm is often greeted with mixed reactions. There’s an indefatigable familiarity to 72-hole stroke play tournaments, the count-’em-all approach permitting the kind of dependability fans like from a game with few certainties. But not this time.

After three rounds, the World Super 6 Perth from February 16-19 will revert to match play by pruning the field to the top 24 on the leader board and settling any ties for 24th spot via a potentially large playoff. Sunday will see a series of six-hole matches with deadlocks resolved on the purpose-built ‘knockout hole’ – a 90-metre journey played from the last fairway at Lake Karrinyup to its 18th green. The knockout hole will only be played once in full, as lingering ties will be broken by a nearest-the-pin contest on the second playing. The winner will move on or, in the final match, become the inaugural champion of the tournament co-sanctioned with the European Tour.

Once the 24 players have been decided, the leading eight will be seeded directly into the second round of elimination matchplay. The other 16 players will be split into eight matches for the first round, with the eight winners paired against the eight seeded players for the second round. From there, the match results will progressively prune the field in half until the last two players contest the final.