BlogWho will win Friday’s matches?

Let’s pick the winners in Friday’s 8 matches

So let’s look at our matches for Friday’s, again we will go from bracket to bracket starting with the Bobby Jones bracket:

Day two of the Accenture Match Play saw a fair amount of upsets as the three #1 seeded players Henrik Stenson, Rory McIlroy and Justin Rose lost meaning that all of the #1 seeded players are gone.  It’s interesting that three of the four #2 seeded players, Jason Day, Sergio Garcia and defending champion Matt Kuchar will go into the third round.

In looking at the plights of the #1 seeded player, the biggest upset and one that wasn’t predicted was Harris English beating Rory McIlroy.  English pretty much dominated the match with a birdie at the 2nd hole as he led by 2 up after the 13th hole.  But McIlroy roared back with birdies at 14, 15 and 16 and for the first time led the match.  English then showed some fortitude with a 19 foot putt for birdie at 17 to level the match.  After both made par at 18, McIlroy hit it into the left rough on the first hole and then hit his next one into the desert and as the old saying goes the rest was history as English made a routine par for the win.  McIlroy played ok on the par 3s and 4s, but only made one birdie on the par 5s and also had to concede one par 5 and made bogey at the other.  As for English he only had two 5s on a card that had a whole bunch of 3s and 4s on it.  With his surprise win over Lee Westwood on Wednesday, English may have the game to win this.

The next #1 to exit was Henrik Stenson who showed that he is happy to see the last of Dove Mountain as since winning this event in 2007 and moving to Dove Mountain has a 1-5 record on the course..  Stenson conceded the 1st and 4th hole and with Oosthuizen making eagle at 2 and par at 3 had a 3 up lead after 4 holes.  Stenson was able to match pars with Oosthuizen and got a hole back but when he made bogey at 12 it was all but over as Oosthuizen regained his 3 up lead.  Oosthuizen birdied the 15th hole to wrap up his 4 & 3 victory.

The last #1 seed to fall was Justin Rose who played great but saw Ernie Els pour in putt after putt.  He capped things off at 18 when he got up and down from an impossible spot, making a 6-foot putt to continue the match.  On the first extra hole both players made ten foot birdie putts.  At the second playoff hole Els got a great break from a bunker when he hit a terrible shot that count the lip just perfectly and trickle to 3 feet away.  Rose also had a bunker shot but left his in the bunker to lose.  I just have to wonder after winning the Volvo Match Play championship seven times if possibly he could also win this one.

For the second day in a row Graeme McDowell made the best comeback of the day.  In his Wednesday match against Gary Woodland he was three down with three to play, the ran off four straight birdies to win in overtime.  On Thursday against Hideki Matsuyama it wasn’t as dramatic but he was 2 down after 14.  McDowell did his part in making birdie, par, birdie and then a par to nip Matsuyama who bogeyed the 18th hole.

In some other marquee matches, Sergio Garcia beat Bill Haas 3 & 1 while Hunter Mahan gave Richard Sterne his third mano-a-mano defeat in this championship.  Sterne led most of the day until Mahan birdied 15 to level the match.  After both made pars at 16 but Sterne couldn’t get it up and down from a greenside bunker at 17 to lose that hold and then Mahan topped it off with a birdie at 18 to win 2 up.

One other marquee name going home is Jimmy Walker who lost 1 down to Rickie Fowler.  Walker had a chance to send the match to overtime only to miss from 14 feet at 18 followed by Fowler holing a par putt from 6 feet for the win.

So that is a recap of the big matches, how were my picks?  I didn’t do as well on Thursday as Wednesday, of the 16 matches I picked eight winners but had 8 losers.  I saw the upsets of Oosthuizen over Stenson, Els over Rose and Simpson over Snedeker.  But I was still surprised by McIlroy losing, can’t explain how Jim Furyk is still in this tournament, I knew that Jimmy Walker wouldn’t go far but couldn’t see him losing to Rickie Fowler and how Hideki Matsuyama lost to Graeme McDowell is still hard for me to believe.

So let’s look at Friday’s matches and I am really looking for a perfect 8 for 8 day.  If you believe that, I have some great swamp land in the Everglades that I could sell you very cheaply.

This week’s posts:

• Be sure to join us tomorrow and Saturday for another look at the matches.