When you watch match play in golf or hear about scores while watching highlights on Sportscenter you usually hear scores like “4 & 3″ or “2 & 1.” To those not familiar with match play golf this shorthand golf talk can be confusing.
What those types of shorthand score reports mean is that the player won the round by 4 holes with three to play, so they didn’t need to play the last 3 holes because there was no way for the opponent to win the match.
So if Tiger Woods is playing Phil Mickelson in match play and going into the 15th hole Tiger Woods is leading by 3 holes Phil Mickelson would need to win the remaining 4 holes to win or win the next three and tie on to send the match play into extra holes. If Tiger Woods wins the 15th hole there is no way Phil Mickelson can win and therefor they would not play the remaining holes.
Tiger Woods would have won the match play round by 4 holes even though there were three remaining to be played. He would have won “4 & 3.”
