TM’s Rule Blog for the week of 11 August 2014
Playoffs? Playoffs? I’m of course thinking of Jim Mora’s famous press conference when he was asked about the playoff chances of his Indianapolis Colts. At a certain point in every season your team will certainly start to think about being part of the 27-team (32-teams in 2017) playoff which will start on the 25th (28th in 2017) of this month. Even if your team isn’t among the top eight in your division, most of us who have stumbled during the regular season have a shot at a wild card. Team 39’s no exception – currently holding a 7-pt lead after two weeks of the wildcard race with this week’s opponent none other than our arch rival Team 25 (currently sweating it out in 7th place). They might very well end up having to use the tie rule (if two teams are tied in the standings after the regular season has been played, the regular season head-to-head match between those two teams will determine their final league standing.) Well, we did have a few rainouts this year, so those teams may not have played a match this year. There is a tiebreaker provision for that – the head-to-head results against that night’s top team will be compared to break the tie. If one or both of those teams haven’t played the top team, head-to-head matchups with the 2nd place team would be compared (and so on, and so on). At some point prior to August 25th, the final standings will be published along with the filled playoff bracket. The playoffs will begin. Playoff procedures aren’t too much different than a normal league match, with one very notable exception. In a normal league match it is possible to have a 9-9 split on the points. Usually these are very tight and competitive matches, and the end result comes down to the last putts on the 9th hole. In those matches you shake hands after 9 holes and head for the clubhouse for a frosty beverage. Not so in the playoffs – ties ain’t allowed. I know the tiebreaker rules have been used at least once, but I would expect that a tie would be a rarity. So, you end up dead tied after 9 holes – what do the two teams do? If there is available light, the two teams would proceed to the 1st hole (all playoff competition (at least this year) is being contested on the front 9) and would start sudden death. The aggregate score on your first hole (your score plush your partners) will be compared with the aggregate score of your opponents with the handicap factored into the results. In other words, you no longer have to figure out how you did against your singles opponent, nor do you have to worry about team net. If after factoring in the handicap you tie that hole, you’d proceed to the 2nd hole and play that hole in the same way. At some point, one of the two teams will win a hole – that team moves on in the playoffs, the other team thinks about next year. Late August starts being tough on available light by 8 PM, and starting a sudden death playoff might be problematic. Our league has provisions for that, too. Start your sudden death if you think you can get at least one hole completed. If a “course official” (don’t know who this is, but the wording’s from the league rules) determines that it’s too dark to play, pick up your balls and play would recommence from that tee box sometime the next day. A better idea would be for both teams to agree to suspend play. However, suspending play in the playoffs means that you’ll have to agree on a time to finish your sudden death playoff before the next round is played – likely meaning you’ll have to meet sometime the next day at Ruggles to finish prior to the next night’s playoff rounds. I am assuming that you would not be charged to play the extra holes, but it is after all Ruggles Golf Course, and I would not be at all surprised to hear that they’d want some sort of payment. All of the night’s competitors may not be available for that, so you could end up with different partners for the sudden death playoff during the next day. If you’re still reading this blog entry at this point, you’ll probably agree with me that a) you don’t want to end up tied after nine holes, and b) you better quickly wrap up the sudden death playoff. Good luck to all of you in the last two weeks of the regular season! As I said in my last post, anything is possible. It’s golf after all.