A Quick Digression about Big Break

I generally don't say much about Golf Channel's show Big Break (other than following some of the good players who come from the show) but this version looks pretty interesting. It's a reunion show, with some of the players who didn't win and, quite frankly, often came off very badly.

Here's the twist: For Big Break: Dominican Republic, instead of eliminating a player each week, they brought in 6 men and 6 women to form teams... and no one gets eliminated. Each team is playing for $100,000 with half of that (and the customary tour exemption, shopping spree, sponsorship contract, etc.) going to one player on the team who finishes as the team's MVP.

If the first show is the pattern, there will be 2 team competitions and a one-on-one competition each week. Whichever team wins the first competition gets a point bonus (which give them an advantage going into the second competition). After the second competition, each member on the winning team gets a certain number of MVP points -- and the team gets a bonus toward the one-on-one competition. This week, each team member got 5 points and there was a 1-stroke bonus.

The winning team now gets to pick one player to represent them, and they get to call out one player from the other team to challenge. On the first show, the challenge was two holes of stroke play... and the winning team's player began with that 1-stroke advantage. The winner of this challenge gets some individual MVP points (in the first show, another 5 points) and the losing player gets "benched" and can't play on the next show. If a player gets benched twice, they're still on the team but barred from further play. Theoretically, if a player made enough individual MVP points before they got benched the second time, they could continue to get team points after they got benched and finish as the MVP! A nice twist, eh?

It'll be interesting to see how this plays out. It's a very different approach from past Big Break shows, and the fact that they aren't eliminating a player each week could leave some very unbalanced teams. (And yes, I mean "unbalanced" in more than just number!)

Here are a couple of links you might be interested in:

• This is the official site for Big Break: Dominican Republic at Golf Channel and
• This is the link to Golfgal, which is Gayle Moss's blog. Gayle always covers the show, and posts weekly updates with reviews of the show and phone calls from the contestants.

I think this show could be fun... in a really nasty sort of way. ;-)