USPA GOLD CUP® DRAW RESULTS AND NEW FORMAT FOR THE SECOND LEG OF THE GAUNTLET OF POLO®
WHAT: In an effort to minimize a large gathering, the United States Polo Association (USPA) hosted the USPA Gold Cup® draw on Thursday, March 4, 2021, from the Seventh Chukker patio at the International Polo Club Palm Beach (IPC) in Wellington, Florida. Limited to teams and staff only, one representative from each team was invited to draw a token in person while teammates watched via Zoom. The GAUNTLET OF POLO® welcomes back inaugural GAUNTLET champions Pilot as well as one new team to compete across three prestigious tournaments for a potential $1,000,000 purse. Qualifying for the C.V. Whitney Cup® Final on Sunday, March 7, Scone and Park Place are the only two remaining teams with an opportunity to be named the 2021 GAUNTLET champion. The official draw determined the playing order for the second tournament of the GAUNTLET OF POLO®, the USPA Gold Cup®, which begins Monday, March 8 at IPC.
WHO: Haley Bryan, IPC Polo Coordinator, and Jimmy Newman, IPC Polo Manager, outlined the tournament format and conducted the official draw.
WHERE: The International Polo Club Palm Beach will not be open to the general public during the 2021 polo season. IPC will offer a limited number of tickets to Sunday Brunch in the Veuve Clicquot Pavilion for spectators as well as exclusive pre-sold tailgates and boxes. There will be no day of event ticket sales. Please read the IPC Reopening Guide available on the USPA Gold Cup® tournament detail page on uspolo.org, for the club’s new protocols and procedures.
Identical to the C.V. Whitney Cup®, the winner of the USPA Gold Cup® will receive $100,000 in prize money and $25,000 will be awarded to the runner-up. New to the GAUNTLET in 2021 and in partnership with USPA Global Licensing, each of the teams will select a charity of their choice from 10 non-profit polo organizations which they can support throughout all three tournaments or select every tournament. Both charities of the winner and runners-up will receive a $5,000 donation in the USPA Gold Cup®.
The list of participating teams in their newly announced tournament brackets are available below:
Bracket I
- Tonkawa
- Aspen/Dutta Corp
- Cessna
- Park Place
Bracket II
- Pilot
- Santa Clara
- La Indiana
- Coca-Cola
- Scone
FORMAT:
The C.V. Whitney Cup® finalists, Park Place and Scone, will be seeded in separate brackets. Bracket I plays teams within their bracket while Bracket II plays the “Five Star Draw” format. Drawing numbers 5-9, the following match-ups will occur: 5 vs. 7, 5 vs. 8, 6 vs. 8, 6 vs. 9, 7 vs. 9
After bracket play all Bracket II teams will be ranked 1-5 based on record and a one-man shootout will be used as a tiebreaker. The top three ranked teams of Bracket II will go straight to a third round game. The fourth and fifth ranked teams of Bracket II will have a playoff game for the last third round game spot. The playoff game will not count toward the team’s win loss record in determining Bracket II teams that go to the semifinals.
In third round game pairings teams will play a team they haven’t played yet if possible, otherwise by draw. The Bracket II teams with the best two records after third round games and the top two from Bracket I will advance to the semifinals. Semifinalists will draw for who they play in the semifinal.