Differences between match and stroke play

Nigel wrote a long comment on my post regarding people in golf about the differences between match and stroke play.   He presents a number of areas where Match and Stroke play differ and his rationales behind those differences. 

A few comments on his rationales, along with some other differences:

1) Nigel is right that the reason for practice differences is because of the equal access.  But, the committee can bar practice in match play or allow it in stroke play.  The former would usually be done to prevent players from being in the way of other groups or the grounds crew.  The latter is to allow things where a man might play in the morning and then want to play in a tournament in the afternoon with his wife or child.

2) Order of Play – The basic premise of match play is always that you know where you stand in the match and you get to make your decisions based on that knowledge.  In order for that to happen, the player who is away must play first.  In match play you can recall the players shot who plays out of turn.  Obvsiously that would not be practical in stroke play as the decision on recalling the stroke would fall on everyone in the field.  It isn’t felt to be enough of an advantage to penalize the player (barring the case where the player is helping another intentionally).

3) Playing from outside the teeing ground – As Nigel said, in match play the player can recall his opponents stroke if he thinks he got a break.  In stroke play, again it would be impractical to have recall be an option.  Also, in stroke play the penalty must be severe enough to prevent the intentional play from outside the teeing ground.  If the penalty was just 2 strokes you could walk up and put you ball next to the hole and hole out in 3.

4) Doubt as to procedure – Agreed

5) Advice – I’m not sure this is a difference other than the fact that once the hole is decided, nothing else matters.  Once I ask for advice, I lost the hole, just as once I play a wrong ball I lost the hole even if you also do so later in the hole.

6) Information as to strokes taken – No penalty in stroke play, but the need for the player to know is stil there, but why should my fellow competitior have more rights than anyone else in the tournament and if I mis-inform him, how does it hurt the rest of the field.

7) ball at rest moved – this one always bothers me a bit.  I don’t see why it is a big deal if I move my opponent’s ball.  I have yet to see a good rationale for this needing to be a penalty.

8-9) Ball at in motion deflected - If I hit you, in match play, you had plenty of time to get out of the way so why didn’t you?  In stroke play, you might be in another group and not even know I was hitting.  While the stymie had something to do with the idea of a ball hitting another ball, it also comes back to the fact that only my opponent and I care about the other ball on the green which might hurt or help me and one of us can act if we care concerned.  In stroke play, everyone would care and they aren’t there to defend their rights.

Other differences:

1) Scorecards – Not required in match play, must be returned, have two signatures and correct scores in stroke play.  In match play we both agree on the status of the match or we work it out.  In stroke play, the player must tell the Committee his score so that they can determine who won.

2) Failure to hole out in stroke play – obviously we have to finish each hole in stroke play to have a score.  In match play our opponent can tell us that we don’t need to finish the hole.

3) Correcting errors in stroke play – If we do something that is significantly serious we might have to correct it before starting the next hole.  In match play we just lose the hole and move on (or our opponent recalls our shot in some cases.)  The 5 cases where you must correct in stroke play:

• Wrong Ball
• Teeing off outside the teeing grounds
• Failure to hole out
• Serious breach of playing from a wrong place
• Hitting out of order in Foursomes