BlogWho will win at Dove Mountain on Sunday?

Let’s pick the winners in Sunday’s matches:

The Accenture Match Play came within a stone throw of having a really great Sunday.  Victor Dubuisson put a kink in it when he beat Graeme McDowell 1 up.  I had a funny feeling when McDowell won the second and third holes that there could be some trouble for him.  You see McDowell led after a total of three holes in his first three matches, of course when it matter the most the last hole.  So when McDowell took an early lead you had to wonder.  McDowell playing against Dubuisson lost the lead when the Frenchman birdied the 4th and 7th holes.  That was the last time McDowell would lead as the match went back and forth with Dubuisson taking the lead for the last time when McDowell bogeyed the 16th hole.  Graeme had one final shot at 18 with a 15 footer for birdie but it wasn’t to be.

So Dubuisson will face Ernie Els who frankly was the most unlikely of the semi-finalist.  On Saturday Els faced Jordan Spieth who was 13 under in his first three rounds (Oosthuizen was the best at 14 under).  For Els, he was 7 over (six over in his 1st round match with Stephen Gallacher and 2nd round match with Justin Rose) so it didn’t look good for him against Spieth, who played his first three rounds 20 shots better.  On top of that in Spieth’s first 49 holes he only trailed in five of those holes.  So when both players made par on the first hole, things went downhill for Spieth who was even with Els on just two holes as Ernie dominated the match, winning 4 & 2.  So Els moves on to the semifinals for the second time in 14 career starts; he lost in the semifinals to Pierre Fulke in 2001 and finished fourth after losing the Consolation Match to Toru Taniguchi.

Over on the other side of the bracket, Jason Day caught a bit of a break as Louis Oosthuizen, who has had back problems over the last year suffered from a sore back throughout his round.  Oosthuizen conceded the first hole to Day after a drive3 into a cactus plant but rebounded with birdies at 2 and 3 to lead by a hole.  That would be the last time he led, he bogeyed the 4th hole and by the 11th hole Day built up a three hole lead.  Day has been a birdie machine in his four rounds, he made seven birdies over the first two matches, then added another 11 birdies in round three and the quarterfinals.

Day has played 74 holes, the most of anyone in the semi’s.  This will be Day’s second consecutive appearance in the semi-finals; last year, he lost in the semi-finals to eventual champion Matt Kuchar and went on to win the Consolation Match against Ian Poulter to finish third, his best of 10 World Golf Championships starts. Day joins Geoff Ogilvy as the only Australians to make it to the semifinals more than once (Ogilvy won 2009; finished second in 2007; won in 2006).

Day is 25 years old and will face another 25 years old Rickie Fowler.  They will be the second oldest pair in the semi’s, in 2003 27 year old Tiger Woods faced 22 year old Adam Scott.

In Fowler’s match against Jim Furyk it looked like he was going to make mince-meat out of Furyk with birdies at 1, 2 and 4 to lead 3 up.  But as quick as Fowler ran up a lead, Furyk chipped away at it when Fowler bogeyed 6 and Furyk birdied 7.  Fowler got the 3 up lead back with birdies at 9 and 11 but Furyk looked like he was going to win when he reeled off four straight birdies between holes 13 and 16 to lead one up.  Again like he did in the Ryder Cup at Medinah, Furyk proved that he just can’t close the deal as he missed the 17th green with his approach and failed to get up-and-down for par. Furyk missed the green again on 18 and failed to get up and down, handing Fowler a 1-up win.

I just have a funny feeling that we may never see Furyk again in this format, his Ryder Cup and Presidents Cup days are over and I can’t see him playing well enough to maintain his top-64 world rankings.  So I finally got it right on the Furyk, Fowler match picking the right winner.

For the day I picked three of the four matches, still can’t believe that McDowell was going to lose.

So on Sunday we have a lot to look forward to, first we have nobody in the semi’s in his 30s.  At 23 Dubuisson will be the third youngest player to make it into the semi’s behind Adam Scott, who was 22 in 2003 and Rory McIlroy, who was 22 in 2012.  With Fowler and Day being 25 and Els being 44 we have a big difference from the youngest to the oldest.

So on Sunday morning Day and Fowler will go off first and the winner will face whoever is the victor in the Dubuisson/Els match.