What is a Match play?

"Match Play" is a golf format  where a player competes against an opponent to gain points on each individual hole. 

A point is awarded to the player with the lowest score on each hole. If both golfers have the same number of strokes on a hole, the hole is halved, and neither player is awarded a point. 

In match play, a golfer wins when they are beating their opponent by more points than there are holes remaining or by finishing the round with more points than their opponent.

To make sure there's no confusion, let's take a look at a couple of examples of match play.

For the sake of brevity, the golfers in these examples will be playing just a 3-hole match rather than a more traditional 18 or 9 holes.

Example:

• Hole 1 - Golfer A completes the first hole in 5 strokes, while Golfer B only needs 4 strokes to complete the hole. Golfer B wins a point because his score was lower.
• Hole 2 - Golfer A needs 4 strokes to complete the second hole, and Golfer B completes the hole in 2 strokes. Again, Golfer B wins a point for having the lowest score on the hole. 
• After two holes, Golfer B is up 2 points on Golfer A. Because there is only one hole left in their three-hole match, Golfer A can't come back to win or tie by the end of the round (Golfer A winning the last hole would still leave him 1 point behind). Golfer B wins by 2 points and the last hole doesn't need to be played.