WS COCKS PLATE

SPRING MATCH PLAY CHAMPIONSHIP

The Championship is the club's second major tournament.  Played at the home of golf, the R&A Marrickville, the popular championship has undergone extensive changes over the past several years under the watchful eye of the Earlwood Comite d'Organisation Des Jeux De Printemps Competition (the Committee).

The most progressive and important ones have taken place more recently.  In 2003, the event was successfully pushed back a month to avoid the encroaching October sporting crush of finals football and the Melbourne spring racing carnival.  The introduction of the highly transparent Dickworth-Lewis system the same year created stand alone and criteria-based handicaps for each of our two majors (this event and The World Series of Golf).  The October stableford qualifier, introduced in 2004 to cater for increased playing numbers, seeds 16 players through to the November match play rounds.

It has been agreed that, where possible, the tournament will have a preferred timing schedule – the qualifier to be held the Sunday after the October long weekend and the match play rounds commencing the Sunday after the Melbourne Cup.

Once famously described in Federal Parliament as "combining the pomp, ceremony and tradition of a British Open with the raucous behaviour of German beer hall patrons", The Championship continues to draw record fields and healthy crowds to the famous Cooks Peninsula links course.

FORMAT

The Championship is a handicap match play event with a stableford qualifier.  The qualifier, which determines and seeds the 16 players advancing to the match play rounds, is held in early October.  The match play rounds are played in November over three consecutive Sundays.  The semi-finals are set down for the Friday afternoon prior to the final unless both players agree to a change.  With that one exception, competitors are not permitted to vary the nominated times and dates of the playing schedule.

 The qualifiers will be seeded this way for the match play rounds: Match 1 - Players ranked 1 and 16, Match 2 - Players 8 and 9, Match 3 - Players 5 and 12, Match 4 - Players 4 and 13, Match 5 - Players 3 and 14, Match 6 - Players 6 and 11, Match 7 - Players 7 and 10 and Match 8 - Players 2 and 15.  Matches 1-4 comprise the top half of the draw and Matches 5-8 the bottom half as per previous Championships.

 RULES OF GOLF

All ESG&EC events are subject to the rules of golf.  If something unusual occurs during your round, the best advice the Committee can give is to consult with your playing partners, both as a matter of courtesy and to check on your proposed course of action, before moving, dropping or playing your ball.  On qualifying day, the low marker in each group will be the nominated rules official for his playing partners.  If the low marker himself is to be the subject of a contentious decision, the group may check with his counterpart in another group for a ruling.

 SCORE CARDS

Players are not permitted to score their own cards on qualifying day – the card, with the players name and handicap clearly shown, must be marked by someone else in the group.  The marker must check the player's score after each hole and is responsible for "recording the gross number of strokes at each hole where the player's net score earns one or more points".  The Committee is asking experienced markers to also note the number of points scored on the hole as well.  If a ball is picked up before the hole is completed, a "w" (for wiped) or "-" is to be recorded as the gross score and "0" or "-" in the stableford points column.  On completion of the round the marker must sign the card and return it to the player.  The player must check that the gross number of strokes recorded for each hole is correct, sign the card and return it to the tournament starter.  It will be the starter's responsibility to ensure that the allocated stableford points and totals are correct.

 HANDICAPS

All ESG&EC tournaments are played under the Dickworth-Lewis handicapping system.  The system imposes two restrictions on The Championship – the maximum individual handicap is 34 and, since the R&A is a Par 60 course, albeit the toughest and most scenic Par 60 in the land, no match shall have a handicap difference of greater than 27.

MATCH INDEX

The match index does not necessarily refer to the difficulty of each hole but rather attempts to provide an even distribution of stokes during a match.  Linking the match handicap (the difference between the handicaps of the two players) to the match index gives you the holes on which the player with the higher handicap will receive a one (or if the match handicap is greater than 18 then a two) shot reduction from his score.

STOKE INDEX

With the R&A's stroke index stopping at 32, the ESG&EC has nominated the 5th and 18th holes as index 33 and 34 to align with The Championship's maximum handicap.  Any ties in the stableford qualifier will be decided by the following count back - last 9 holes, last 6 holes, last 3 holes and last hole.

MATCH PLAY CONCESSIONS