Match play vs. stroke play....
Match play. We play most every week with our groups and if seems no matter who is paired with who the matches are very tight. We do use handicaps. Seems like every match comes down to the last hole. Today our match was even. We only play for a beer or 5 bucks, but we are serious about winning. 
Bubba looks like he's ready for Augusta,this wasn't even close today.
Match play more often would be cool. The less putting out, moves things along better.
It’s especially a better way to play amongst friends or in a league for the same reason.
Prefer match play - both watching and playing!
I like playing match play but it is not so great for TV. The PGA Championship used to be match play but TV did not like it because you ended up with just a few players on Sunday. Four hours of Bubba and Kisner.
It would be good to see more matchplay on tour...
One possibility for a full-field event - have two qualifying rounds of strokeplay on Wednesday/Thursday to get the field down to 64 (or maybe 32 - 64 would mean playing 2 rounds per day Friday/Saturday/Sunday, which would make getting everything finished on the Friday difficult, and potentially cause issues if there were any delays), then straight knockout matchplay from then on. To get around the lack of players on the course on the last day, have a 'second flight' competition for the players who lost at the last 32 stage, with some cash/ranking points on offer.
The reason I like the Presidents Cup and Ryder Cup and Solheim Cup is the match play. But that is enough for the year for me. I like to play stroke play because match play you can get sloppy on a few holes and still win the match. Stroke play if you make a big number on just one or two holes you probably will lose your money.
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I FAR prefer stroke play where there are a few players jockeying and taking runs at the title. Watching a match play tournament is like watching paint dry, IMO. I have no interest in it. I watched all of about an hour of this week's tournament and the only reason I watched that amount of it is that I had to something when I stopped for lunch. That being said, the Ryder Cup is my favorite golf event, even above the majors. But it is more the team element, the different formats, and strategy of the match-ups that attracts me, not the match play. As for playing tournaments, though, I FAR prefer playing match play.
Not sure what the tv ratings were for yesterday's match with Bubba vs Kisner, but it couldn't have been all that great. When Bubba was 6-up through 7 holes, there was really no incentive there for me to not switch the channel to the NCAA tournament going on.
That's the potential downside to the format as a televised, non-Ryder Cup event. Neither match (finals or consolation match) were overly compelling.
Ryder Cup is different, however. It seems Ryder Cup brings out the best and most always delivers a compelling finish. As a regular tour event, not so much a lot of the time.
Like both. However, the format for the Dell needs to be tweaked. Too hard to figure out where everyone stood. I understand they don't want the star players to be gone after one match, but there's got to be a better way.
We recently had our annual USA vs. Canada where we played a 2 man team scramble. Hole play / match play is a lot of fun to play.
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Sneakylong there's got to be a better way.
Make it double elimination. Oh, and match play of course.
I really enjoy match play, but this last WGC Tournament wasn't that great to watch down the end. Only the final match really counts and unfortunately Kisner just completely lost the magic that he had the previous few days. And when you only have 2 matches on the course that's a lot of down time for us viewers. With the Ryder Cup you have a bunch of matches going on and they all might matter. I'm not sure how the format should be changed to improve things for both players and viewers.
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Not sure it really can be changed. The double elimination aspect later on was instituted, in part, to offset the chance that a popular player simply had a bad day, giving him another chance. I think it's completely fair the way it is quite honestly.
Just don't know that outside of Ryder Cup/Presidents Cup that it's an exciting format, except on the rare occasion. Hardly ever do you have two players inside the top 10 in the world competing against each other in the finals.
And to be honest, had Noren putted even halfway decent - the match wouldn't have gone down to the wire against Kisner. I just think that match took so much out of Kisner that he was mentally spent going into the finals.
Bubba was on-form and there aren't many people who can compete with him when he's striking it well and putting well, at least outside of that top-10 echelon.
Great win for Bubba no less... not a great Sunday for televised coverage and the fans.
Thus is the tumultuous nature of matchplay.
Match play is my favorite both to watch and play. Match play is at it's best when several players go into a play off at the end of a stroke play tournament. But, I understand the difficulty of match play for TV and the tour.
I have learned when I play the importance of playing a mix of both. Both require a different mental approach. One allows for aggressive play, but the other requires consistency. I have learned to consistently win in match play you have to balance aggression with consistency. It is much easier to type this than it is to do it.