Match Play Madness

Everything to do with the WGC Match Play event is new and shiny this year, including:

1. A new sponsor;
   
2. A new venue
3. A new format; and
4. A new date.

And I'm probably forgetting something... To dispense with the more temporal aspects, the Tour lost Accenture's sponsorship after last season's event and Cadillac jumped in to help the Commish out for this year only.  Dominoes were scattered in the process, mostly to our benefit...

The Commish was able to blackmail impose upon valued sponsors and organizers to move dates to fit the event in here, and Harding Park provides an acceptable venue for the proceedings.  It's way over-rated as a golf course and there's little in the way of risk-reward holes that scream Match Play, but the strongest argument in its favor is that it's not Dove Mountain.... the importance of that can't be over-emphasized.  And it's unlikely to snow, though it was plenty cold at nearby Lake Merced for the ladies last week... 

The most substantive change is to the format and brackets, which changes the event substantially...the event was previously a basic single-elimination bracket with the players seeded based upon their world rankings.  This created a bit of an upside down tournament, where Wednesday was an all-you-can-eat buffet of epic proportions (32 matches of win-or-go-home intensity), but the event lost intensity and interest as the week progressed.  I was fine with that, but one readily acknowledges the issues this creates for sponsors and players, especially given that 18 holes of match play is as close to a coin flip as you'll get.

The solution is one that I last year called the least-bad proposed fix, though as I see the plan closer up I'm thinking I might have undersold it.  The new format creates sixteen groups of four players, (pods anyone?), that will play round-robin matches Wednesday through Friday, with the winner of the group advancing to Saturday morning's quarter-finals.  

So we've given up one day of 32 matches for....three days of 32 matches.  Boy, that seems like the kind of trade you run rather than walk to make....  Of course it's not quite as simple as that, for it's the do-or-die of it that creates the intensity... But as I think about it, those first two days should still be plenty intense.

To win your group you'll of course need to win a minimum of two of the three matches, and that may not suffice.  Hard to find, but this is how ties will be broken:

• Two-man ties will be broken by the winner of the head-to-head match;
• Three-man ties will be broken by a sudden death playoff.

Forgive me, but I can find no reference to whether matches can be halved or will be played off to a conclusion.  The former would obviously lead to fewer ties...

What are the chances of a player losing on Wednesday and still making the Sweet Sixteen?  Pretty bad I'm thinking... A Day One loser obviously would need to win his next two matches.  Even then, if the guy you lost to splits his nest two matches, you'd need a draw-to-an-inside straight three-way tie to have a chance.  One of the things I may try to revisit over the weekend is to see how many of the thirty-two Wednesday losers have a Saturday tee time...I'm guessing a small number..

The other change they made was to create a blind draw... the top sixteen were seeded, but after that the brackets were filled out with a random draw as follows:

The new format will include 16 four-player groups, with the top 16 players in the World Golf Ranking anchoring each group followed by players picked randomly from one of three pools. Pool No. 1 included players ranked from 17th to 32nd, followed by Nos. 33 to 48 in the second pool and Nos. 49 to 64 in the last pool.

So, without further ado, here are your groups pods:

Group 1	Group 2	Group 3	Group 4
Rory McIlroy	Jordan Spieth	Henrik Stenson	Bubba Watson
Billy Horschel	Lee Westwood	Bill Haas	Louis Oosthuizen
Brandt Snedeker	Matt Every	Brendon Todd	Keegan Bradley
Jason Dufner	Mikko Ilonen	John Senden	Miguel Angel Jimenez
Group 5	Group 6	Group 7	Group 8
Jim Furyk	Justin Rose	Jason Day	Dustin Johnson
Martin Kaymer	Ryan Palmer	Zach Johnson	Victor Dubuisson
Thongchai Jaidee	Anirban Lahiri	Branden Grace	Charl Schwartzel
George Coetzee	Marc Leishman	Charley Hoffman	Matt Jones
Group 9	Group 10	Group 11	Group 12
Adam Scott	Sergio Garcia	Jimmy Walker	J.B. Holmes
Chris Kirk	Jamie Donaldson	Ian Poulter	Brooks Koepka
Paul Casey	Bernd Wiesberger	Webb Simpson	Russell Henley
Francesco Molinari	Tommy Fleetwood	Gary Woodland	Marc Warren
Group 13	Group 14	Group 15	Group 16
Rickie Fowler	Matt Kuchar	Patrick Reed	Hideki Matsuyama
Graeme McDowell	Hunter Mahan	Ryan Moore	Kevin Na
Shane Lowry	Stephen Gallacher	Danny Willett	Joost Luiten
Harris English	Ben Martin	Andy Sullivan	Alexander Levy

Those hoping for a FIFA-like Group of Death will be drawn to Group 1, all the better because Rory and Billy Horschel have some history going back to that Royal County Down Walker Cup.  For public consumption we've been told that that's all been patched up, but still...

I'll pick Group 8 as the most interesting group, though I'm a tad mystified as to how Miggy is even in the field.  I assume you've heard that Phil was a late scratch and Tiger of course has sunk far too low in the world rankings, so enjoy your time with Tommy Fleetwood.

In Forward-Looking Statements (and Rule 144 remains in full effect), a couple of the Loopsters have posted the nine best matches from pool play.  And while they make some very valid points about not writing off Mikko Ilonen vs. Jordan Spieth, that's still a tough sell...at least until the Finn has the future of golf three down with five to play.  Remember, you heard it here first...

But this one we can all agree on:

Group 8: Dustin Johnson vs. Victor Dubuisson

Dig the long ball? Well, these are two of the longest hitters in the world. Dubuisson announced himself to golf fans around the world with his uncanny recovery shots in last year's WGC-Match Play final when he took Jason Day to 23 holes. And he took down another fellow bomber, Bubba Watson, last year. DJ is 2-6 in past WGC-Match Plays, but his game wasn't really suited to the past venue, the Ritz-Carlton Dove Mountain. He's been solid in Ryder Cups and Presidents Cups and has been playing great in 2015, so this should be an interesting match. --S.H.

Hell yeah!  I'd pay money for that one, though I'm not sure that the Mystery Man has shown us much form recently. 

They also include Jimmy Walker v. Ian Poulter, and there I'll beg to differ.  No question that Poults has been a match play stud at times, but he couldn't summon the magic at Gleneagles and did you seem him with the lead at the Honda?  Shankopotamus is in the building... 

Jim McCabe is also riding the Poulter bus, with handicapping advice here:

• Ian Poulter has made it to the semifinals three times, is 1-0 when getting to the final and is 22-12 overall.

• Matt Kuchar’s overall record is 17-4 and includes a championship win.

• Hunter Mahan may not shine in the majors, but he’s 17-7 in the Match Play, and that includes a championship.

• Henrik Stenson has made it to the final twice, and his overall mark of 13-7 includes one championship.

• Defending champion Jason Day boasts a 14-4 overall record.

• Before he fell from WGC status, Paul Casey had proved quite good at this match-play stuff; though he lost two trips to the final, he is 16-9 overall.

It's not that I hold a grudge, but Day was my Masters pick and well...maybe we just need a little time apart.  It's not you, Jason, it's me...

Jim also had this:

The escape from Dove Mountain? Let’s have a party: If Johnson (Dustin) & Johnson (Zach) and Adam Scott are walking around with the biggest smiles this week, there’s good reason. The mountainous greens of the Dove Mountain Golf Club in Marana, Ariz., simply did not agree with any of them. Scott lost in Round 1 five times in seven visits; Zach Johnson did similarly six times in eight starts; and Dustin Johnson was one-and-done five times in six trips. Combined, they were 6-21. Scott and Zach Johnson never made it past the second round, and Dustin Johnson got as far as the third round once.

Fair enough, though only one of those two has shown any form at all... Anyone know what Adam is putting with this week?

Are you liking Rory's chances?  He came out of the Masters on a roll, but be advised that he's got Saturday evening plans:

Rory McIlroy is going the extra mile to ensure he's at ringside for Saturday's mega-fight between Floyd Mayweather and Manny Pacquiao in Las Vegas. 

The world No 1 will be playing in the WGC-Cadillac Match Play Championship in San Francisco this weekend, but will make the 570 mile trip to the MGM Grand before heading straight back after the fight.

This will mean, if McIlroy is still around after the quarter-finals of the Championship on Saturday, the sports fan will fly by private jet to the fight, before completing the 1,140 mile round-trip in order to get up early for the semis the following morning.

With the semis and finals jammed into Sunday, that's gonna be an early tee time...and he's just daring the Commish to put him in the first group out.  

Dell is running a bracket challenge at PGATour.com here, and Shack has a leaugue withing the Dell challenge here.  Seems like they're missing an opportunity, as they only require picking the group winners.  Why not have folks pick every head-to-head match, which would create separation and allow for daily results.  As it now stands, no interim results are available until late Friday.

I've just completed my bracket and it's....eccentric.  But it should be a fun week, so enjoy.... and no excuse to not watch, as they'll be a ton of prime time coverage.