The GOLFZON Tour’s Canada team took on Team Orlando at the Old Course in St. Louis. Andrews.
on the golf course
This article is produced in partnership with GOLFZON.
What started as a 12-team golf-simulator competition for a $150,000 grand prize is now a seven-team battle to the finish.
The first five matches have been completed on the GOLFZON Tour – a new league in which regional teams of five players each from 12 selected GOLFZON host facilities (nine are in the US, the other three are from London, Toronto and Mexico) compete against each other in a series of matches, with one team winning the grand prize.
Team Orlando defeated Team Louisville in match 1, while Team Minneapolis defeated Team Chicago in match 2. Team London fell to Team New York in Game 3AND Team Houston defeated Team Mexico in Game 4. Game 5 featured another international battle, pitting Team Canada against Team Orlando in the first leg of the quarterfinals.
In this simulator golf league, daily players compete for $150,000
Jessica Marksbury
format
Single-elimination bracket play is now underway. Female competitors play 85 percent of the court of their male counterparts. Teams of three compete head-to-head by linking their simulators together online in a match format, with two of the three best player scores for each team counting on each hole.
If, after 18 holes, there is a tie, the match goes into a sudden death playoff where all three players’ scores count. The first team to score less than the other on a hole wins.
GOLFZON Tournament Match 5 Recap: Team Canada (Toronto) vs. Team Orlando
In this international GOLFZON Tour match, Team Canada (Toronto) and Team Orlando played each other at an iconic venue: The old course at St. Andrews. Teams competed against each other in real time from their regional simulator locations.
Team Canada was one of four teams to earn a first-round bye during the qualifiers, while Team Orlando was already seasoned for high-octane competition after defeating Team Louisville in Round 1.
It was an up-and-down battle from the start, with Team Orlando winning the first two holes and Team Canada coming back with a win on the third. Orlando then won the fourth hole and Canada won the fifth and seventh holes to tie the match.
Team Orlando won the 8th hole, then Canada responded with a win at the 9th to square the match at the halfway mark.
The teams tied the 10th and 11th holes, with Team Orlando finally gaining a 1-up advantage with a win on the 12th. Orlando held that lead until the 17th hole—the famous hole of on the way – where Team Canada prevailed to tie the match again with just one hole remaining.
Another bogey on the 18th, the final hole of the match, meant it was time for sudden death. In sudden death, all three scores of a team’s players count instead of the best two. Another tie on the first sudden-death hole meant the teams would have to carry on – the first time more than one extra hole was needed on this edition of the GOLFZON Tour. When two of Team Canada’s members hit that OB on the second sudden-death hole, the door to victory opened for Team Orlando, and in the end they won the match with a birdie and two strokes.
That means Team Orlando is one of seven teams still in contention for the $150,000 grand prize and will face the winner of the matchup between Team New York and Team Detroit in the semi-final round of the GOLFZON Tour.
The teams
The 12 teams competing in this edition of the GOLFZON Tour are:
Eastern Division
Detroit – Tee Times
London – Golf Rooms – ELIMINATED (match 3)
Louisville – Tee It Up Golf USA – ELIMINATED (match 1)
New York City – Golfzone Social
Orlando – Leadbetter golf
Toronto – Play golf – ELIMINATED (match 5)
Western Division
Chicago – Green – ELIMINATED (game 2)
Houston – The Daly Round
los angeles – Golf Envy
Mexico – Mulligan’s Monterrey – ELIMINATED (match 4)
Minneapolis – The element of indoor golf
Tulsa – BirdieBay
Follow the action
You can watch the matches in full at GOLFZON’s YouTube pagewhere new episodes and match recaps will be released every week. The tournament is currently in the middle of the single-elimination quarter-final rounds, so you can follow along every week to see which team ends up in the finals in January.
To learn more about the GOLFZON Tour – and follow the progress of the match brackets – click here.
