Tie Break Question

[jenb]

If it's a shotgun start, and your card started on hole four, does that fulfill the condition that the TD established a different series prior to the round, so you start the sudden death on hole 4? Or do you still start the tie break on hole 1?

1.9 Tie Breakers
A. Between rounds when the groups are being reset, tied positions shall be broken. The player with the lowest score in the most recent round shall have the highest ranking when the scorecards/positions are reset. In the event of ties for lowest score, the ties shall be broken by the director through a consistently applied manner.

B. Final ties for first place in any division or for the reduction of field size must be broken by sudden death play. Sudden death play shall begin with hole number one unless a different hole or series of holes is designated by the Tournament Director prior to the start of the tournament.

My take is that, since the "different series of holes" is designated by the TD prior to the tournament, and a player or card's shotgun start posision can vary from round to round, then the shot gun start does not designate a different series of holes prior to the start of the tournament for sudden death play. So it seems like it is always going to be hole number 1, unless temp holes are added (i.e., the TD sets up temp holes like 1a and 1b, and then 1c is the permanent hole 1 that becomes third in the series) or holes are designated to be played out of order for some strange reason.

[vonDrehle]

It depends on the course. For instance at Winthrop a tie breaker, if you can remember when Ken and Barry went at it, is hole #1,#17, and #18. I have done tournaments where we just went off and played match play until one of us finally took it not taking into account how far away we would be when finished. Luckily it ended on hole #2 .

If hole #1 is far away from where the tournament stuff is being done then the best bet would be which ever hole is closest just so you aren't holding up the entire tournament doing a 10min walk to hole #1.

[Lithicon]

Ususally they designate where to start the sudden death. If not, we always started on the closest hole, LOL. Usually hole one, or maybe hole 9, depending on the course. One course 15 is the closest. But, I think it's hole 1 where you're suppose to start unless designated other wise by the TD.

[DavidSauls]

The shotgun start, or rule 1.9B, doesn't affect it. It's hole 1, unless the TD has announced another hole prior to the tournament. (There are a variety of reasons he might---sometimes the HQ isn't close to Hole 1, sometimes Hole 1 is a biased hole in favor of lefties or righties.....we designate ours, in part, to be viewable from HQ and thus spectator-friendly.)

[scarpfish]

It's possible in your typical shotgun start that the tied finishers for first place could come from different cards, so you'd have to start them in the same place for the playoff.

Some have suggested that sudden death isn't a terribly fair format, particularly if the first hole has a bias that favors one player over the other.

[ArcheType]

In all the tournaments I've played, they've had throw offs at the TDs discretion, one TD said the players could either start on 10, or 1, and another (keep in mind it was during a windy day with freezing rain) said they could play whatever they wanted, as long as they agreed.

[Cgkdisc]

Default for playoff starting hole is hole 1 unless TD specifies alternative.