GOLFZON Tour’s Team Tulsa defeats Team Houston in Match 6

This article was produced in partnership with GOLFZON.

What began as a 12-team, simulator-golf match-play competition for a $150,000 grand prize is now a six-team battle to the finish.

The first six 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 U.S., the others are from London, Toronto and Mexico) compete against each other in a series of matches, with one team earning the grand-prize payout.

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 Match 3, and Team Houston defeated Team Mexico in Match 4. Match 5 featured another international battle, pitting Team Canada against Team Orlando in the first match of the quarterfinals. Team Orlando won in a sudden-death playoff to launch themselves into the semifinal round.

And in Match 6, Team Tulsa faced Team Houston in the tournament’s second match with a place in the semifinals on the line.

Lifestyle

The Format

Single-elimination bracket play is currently in progress. Teams of three compete head-to-head by linking their simulators together over the Internet in a match-play format, with two of the best three player scores for each team counting on each hole. Female competitors play 85 percent of the yardage of their male counterparts.

If, after 18 holes, there’s a tie, the match goes into a sudden-death playoff where all three players’ scores count. The first team to score lower than the other on a hole wins.

GOLFZON Tour Match 6 Recap: Team Tulsa vs. Team Houston

In this GOLFZON Tour quarterfinal matchup, Team Tulsa and Team Houston played each other at a bucket-list venue: the Kiawah Resort’s Ocean course. The teams competed against each other in real time from their regional simulator locations.

Team Tulsa was one of four teams that earned a bye in the first round of match-play during the qualifying stage, while Team Houston already had a head-to-head win on the resume after defeating Team Mexico in Match 4.

It was Team Tulsa that got off to a fast start, though, winning the first three holes to go 3 up. When Team Houston finally got one back on the 5th hole, Team Tulsa answered right back again with a win on the 6th.

Team Houston wasn’t about to go down that easy. With wins on the 7th and 9th holes, Team Houston cut Team Tulsa’s lead to 1 up at the match’s halfway point.

But Team Tulsa’s wins on the 12th and 13th holes brought them back to 3 up with five holes remaining — a tough deficit to overcome. Team Houston attempted to rally with a win on the 15th hole, but when Team Houston’s birdie putts failed to drop on 16, Team Tulsa sealed the deal with a win to end the match with a 3 and 2 victory.

That means Team Tulsa is one of six teams still in the running for the grand prize of $150,000, and will face the winner of Team Minneapolis and Team LA’s match next in GOLFZON Tour’s semifinal round.

The Teams

The 12 teams competing in this edition of GOLFZON Tour are:

East Division

Detroit – Tee Times
London – The Golf Rooms – ELIMINATED (Match 3)
Louisville – Tee It Up Golf USA – ELIMINATED (Match 1)
New York City – Golfzon Social
Orlando – Golfzon Leadbetter
Toronto – Golfplay – ELIMINATED (Match 5)

West Division

Chicago – The Green – ELIMINATED (Match 2)
Houston – The Daly Round – ELIMINATED (Match 6)
Los Angeles – Golf Envy
Mexico – Mulligan’s Monterrey – ELIMINATED (Match 4)
Minneapolis – Element Indoor Golf
Tulsa – BirdieBay

Follow the action

You can watch the matches in their entirety on GOLFZON’s YouTube page, where new episodes and match recaps will be released weekly. The tour is currently in the midst of single-elimination quarterfinal rounds, so you can follow along each week to see which team ends up making it to the finale on Jan. 23rd in Orlando.

To learn more about GOLFZON Tour — and follow the match-play bracket progress — click here.