Justin Rose has summed up this week’s Accenture Match Play Championship in Tucson, Arizona and it should make Rory McIlroy, Tiger Woods, Luke Donald and Louis Oosthuizen nervous.
The first world championship of the season brings together the game’s top 64 players, or in this case 64 of the current top 68 with Phil Mickelson and Brandt Snedeker not playing and Ireland’s Shane Lowry McIlroy’s first round opponent today having dropped to 68th since qualifying.
Fifth seed Rose, who will open against KJ Choi, said as he looked ahead to the most unpredictable week of the golfing year: “If you look at tennis the top four seeds seem to advance to the semis at every grand slam. If the top four advanced to the semis here we’d all be in disbelief. It simply doesn’t happen.”
The event is in its 15th year and, never mind the semi-finals, the leading four players have never made the last 16 without at least one of them going out.
More than that, there have been only three stagings of the event and none since 2005 when all four have made it through their opening matches.
Three years ago England’s Ross McGowan, not even in the world’s top 1,000 now, put out top seed Steve Stricker, while in 2003 Ernie Els Open champion then as he is now was sent packing by New Zealander Phil Tataurangi.
Woods plays his former Presidents Cup partner Charles Howell, 2011 winner Donald, knocked out by Els in the first round 12 months ago, faces German Marcel Siem and Oosthuizen tackles Scotland’s Richie Ramsay.
Ian Poulter is the one who has most excelled at match play in recent years.
He won this title in 2010, lifted the Volvo World Match Play in Spain the following season and then gave his inspired unbeaten display in Chicago.
Not that Poulter will be underestimating the challenge posed by Scotland’s Stephen Gallacher, winner of the Dubai Desert Classic only three weeks ago, especially as he has not played competitively himself since the first week of January.
Graeme McDowell faces Padraig Harrington in an all-Irish clash while Westwood, Paul Lawrie and Jamie Donaldson are seeded to beat Rafael Cabrera Bello, Scott Piercy and Thorbjorn Olesen.