BlogWGC Match Play Preview and Picks

The Buzz:

Last year when Jason Day beat Victor Dubuisson on the fifth extra hole, the Accenture Match Play had a lot of problems.  The biggest was their sponsor, Accenture, who was leaving which created a problem for the World Federation in securing another one.  Next was the venue, Dove Mountain was barley tolerable but did have a Ritz Carlton for the sponsors but Tucson wasn’t the draw that many thought it would be.  The course wasn’t a favorite of many except for Ian Poulter, Matt Kuchar, Nick Watney, Bubba Watson and Hunter Mahan who made that site an annuity for them.  It became a disadvantage for many and even though they didn’t say it, Tiger Woods, Phil Mickelson and Adam Scott took a pass.  Many cited the fact that this event should be moved around so that it didn’t give a group of players an advantage each year but let’s face the one ton gorilla and that was the format.  For most pure Match Play in which if you lose you go home was not a big winner with players, fans, TV and the media.  The sight of half of your marquee names going home on Wednesday didn’t help matters either.  In the 16 years of the tournament you never had that one great final with Tiger going against Phil Mickelson or Rory McIlroy.  Even with Tiger making it to the final match four times, it was against Darren Clarke (who beat him), David Toms, Davis Love III and Stewart Cink.  Guess we should of seen this when the very first final match in 1999 pitted superstars Jeff Maggert and Andrew Magee.

So when Day finally beat Dubuisson on the fifth extra hole it put an exclamation point onto this event.  Many felt that the event would not continue, which was wrong thinking.  But with Accenture out of the picture, the contract with Dove Mountain finished it was time to reevaluate everything about the Match Play Championship.  It took a bit but a stop-gap sponsor in Cadillac was found and the event moved dates two months later in late April and the venue is now up in San Francisco and Harding Park.  That move was more of a way to appease the city of San Francisco who had a contract with the PGA Tour to play a number of events over a long period of time.  Still Harding Park, which held the 2009 Presidents Cup and 2005 WGC-American Express Championship was a site that people could embrace.  But the most important element that event bosses did was change the format.

It’s still match play but no more single elimination matches the first three days, the field will be broken up into 16, four-player groups and over the first three days everyone will play the other three men in their group and the player with the best record in each group advances to the Round of 16.  From then on the event goes back to single elimination match play but the focus is that all 64 players will be around three days so that fans and TV will have three great days of action.  For some they could lose a match, but still have a chance of playing good enough in their other two matches to make it to the next round.  Now if there are ties in a group, their head-to-head match result determines the player to advance.  If by chance three players in a group are tied, they will go out in a sudden-death playoff.

So how are the groups chosen?  The first 16 names in the world rankings will head each group.  So #1 Rory McIlroy is in group 1, #2 Jordan Spieth heads group 2 and it’s that way to #16 Hideki Matsuyama who is in group 16.  On Monday afternoon a random draw will fill out the groups with the other 48 players,  They will be in groups of players ranked 17th to 32nd (Player B), those 33rd to 48th (Player C), and those 49th to 64th (Player D).  The shame of this is that it only gives you the rest of Monday and Tuesday to do picks, but it will add some surprise to the process of getting players grouped together.

These changes will revitalize this event and should make it a must-see five day event instead of that one great Wednesday to see the carnage happening.

Now their is more on this event.  Just last month it was announced that for next year Dell will take over the title sponsorship and the event will be played in Austin, Texas with dates at the end of March.  Dell has signed up through 2019 so the future of this event looks promising.

Unfortunately my dream of this event won’t happen in the near future.  I know it could never happen, but with the magic of television wouldn’t it be great to take one event around the world to some of the great courses that many folks have never seen.   Wouldn’t it be great to see the championship at Kidnappers or Kauri Cliffs in New Zealand.  How about one year going to Sweden and the Falsterbo Golf Club.  How about Casa De Campo in Dominican Republic or Barnbougle in Tasmania, Koolau in Hawaii is a great course for Match Play along with the Stadium Course in La Quinta.  There is also Pinnacle Point in South Africa and on the European Tour a couple of years ago the Volvo Match Play Championship was held at Thracian Cliffs in Bulgaria, a great course played over the Black Sea with half of the holes on cliffs over the water.  You get the point there are a lot of places to go, most of them wouldn’t be financially feasible but anything is possible.

Still this event is on the right track, Harding Park isn’t a juggernaut course for match play but frankly it’s about the play itself.  If you have the right match it could be played just as easily at a par 3 course, but I agree a really great course gives it more drama.

Tournament information:

This will be the 17th World Golf Championship – Cadillac Match Play championship.  TPC Harding Park is the fifth different course to hold this championship. The previous home was the Golf Club at Dove Mountain for the last six years.  Before that the Gallery Golf Club held it for two years, before that the LaCosta Spa and Resort, which held the 1999, 2000, 2002 through 2006 events. In 2001 the Metropolitan Golf Club in Melbourne, Australia was the venue.

Course information:

TPC Harding Park

• San Francisco, California
• 7,115 yards     Par 35-36–71
• Course has a 74.3 rating and slope rating of 129 fron the championship tees. Harding Park is a municipal course owned by the city of San Francisco.  The course has a storied history in San Francisco history holding several PGA Tour events in the 60s plus a lot of local championships.  For years Harding Park was called one of the most demanding and underrated course around since it first opened in 1925.
• In the 70s with the money crunch brought to California with Proposition 13, Harding Park became neglected.  The gem of public golf became a weed-infested haven and if former USGA president Sandy Tatum didn’t step in with a helping hand the course would of been forgotten.  Tatum remembered the way the course was in the 50s and 60s, he played in numerous city championships held at the course, and championed it’s revival.  He got corporate backing and with the help of the PGA Tour promising to bring championships to the course, a $16 million renovation took place in 2002.
• With the course redone, the WGC-American Express Championship was held at Harding Park with Tiger Woods beating John Daly in a three hole playoff.  Four years later the Presidents Cup was held at Harding Park, with the U.S. Team winning by five points.  After that the Champions Tour season ending Charles Schwab Cup Championship was held in 2010, 2011 and 2013. The biggest honor the course will have comes in 2020 when the PGA Championship will be played at Harding Park.

Here are some of the secrets of what it takes to play well at the WGC-Cadillac Match Play Championship:

Key stat for the winner:

On the PGA Tour, there are some players that look more at a big check instead of playing to win.  These players are dangerous in match play because they have only one thing to think about, winning.  So in some respects this year’s 12 Cadillac rookies (Matt Every, Tommy Fleetwood, Matt Jones, Brooks Koepka, Anirban Lahiri, Alex Levy, Ben Martin, Andy Sullivan, Brendon Todd, Marc Warren, Bernd Weisberger and Danny Willet) have just as much of a chance as Rory McIlroy, Henrik Stenson, Bubba Watson, Zach Johnson or Justin Rose.  Just look at what happened last year, Jordan Spieth made it to the quarter-finals while Victor Dubuisson made it to the finals.  Just look at what happened to Tiger Woods in 2002 when he got beat in the first round by Peter O’Malley or even in 2013 when Charles Howell III beat him on Wednesday.  So don’t think that just because Rory McIlroy, who was the number one draw is a better player than Danny Willett.  When you see some pairings of a superstar against a lesser name player like Marc Warren or Ben Martin on paper the match looks like David verses Goliath.  We all know what happened in that story it’s happened before and will happen in years to come.

Here are some more key stats to look to for this week:

• We have no real history of players at Harding Park.  Yes Tiger won in 2005 and won five matches in the 2009 Presidents Cup, but he isn’t playing.  So everyone starts with a clean slate on Wednesday with nobody having a home field advantage like Ian Poulter, Matt Kuchar, Nick Watney, Bubba Watson and Hunter Mahan had at Dove Mountain.
• Match play is a rare format on the PGA Tour.  Even though it’s the game that is played regularly in golf clubs around the world, its not played that much on the PGA Tour.  The secret to winning in match play is not playing the best, but, more importantly, avoiding doing the wrong thing at the wrong time.  In a lot of matches someone could be striking the ball perfectly and putting well while his opponent could be hitting it all around the lot, missing greens, but chipping in for halves on holes.  Before you know it that match could come down to the final hole and the player that isn’t doing the best could chip in and win a match.  It happens all the time.  Remember a score doesn’t mean anything in match play.
• This is also a different format.  Just because you lose that first round match on the 20th hole doesn’t mean like previous years that you were on a plane home that night.  You still have two more matches and could all of a sudden find your game and find yourselve winning your group.  So it’s really important to take each match at one time and not worry if your playing poorly early.  A prefect example of this was last October at the Volvo World Match Play Championship in London.  Mikko Ilonen lost his first match to Joost Luiten 1 down.  He won the remaining matches in his group and then won the rest of his matches beating Henrik Stenson in the finals.  So anything can happen in this format.
• A couple of things that can help you pick a winner is to look at those with good match play records.  Past winners of the U.S. Amateur like Ryan Moore and Phil Mickelson know how to win in this format so they have a bit of an advantage. Also look at how strong Ian Poulter has been in the Ryder Cup, in this event and in the Volvo Match Play in Europe. Those that have won other match play events like Graeme McDowell, Paul Casey and Poulter, those that do well in playoffs or with leads.
• Also look at players with good single records in the Ryder Cup and Presidents Cup. Players like Rory McIlroy, Ian Poulter and Patrick Reed.  Also players that have been doing well of late like Jordan Spieth, Jim Furyk and Justin Rose should do well this week.
• In the past the most difficult place to pick winners was the first round.  You were a superstar if you picked half of them right.  Now the first round means nothing, so look for more marquee players dominating the first three days and getting into the round of 16 on Saturday morning.  Again seeds mean nothing anymore.

Some secrets to playing at Harding Park:

• Harding Park is a new, old face on the PGA Tour.  Yes, PGA Tour events were played on it in the 50s & 60s with the last being the 1969 Lucky International before the 2005 American Express.  One thing that was surprising about the winners of the Lucky International was that of the seven winners, two were San Francisco natives and four of the seven had roots in California.  If you count the 2005 WGC-Amex with Tiger, that’s five of the eight having California roots.  Just like with Torrey Pines in which Californian’s seem to dominate that event a lot has to do with the Poa annua. Yes it’s advertised that the greens are creeping bentgrass but it’s nearly impossible for any course by the sea in California not to have some Poa in the greens, so that makes those players from California have an advantage.
• Harding Park is located less than a mile from the Pacific Ocean and over the course of the five days don’t be surprised to see all four seasons during the week.  Morning fog will greet early morning players, with the sun breaking through at about noon.  On really sunny days, wind will pop up just after lunch, thus bringing back the fog.  As for poor weather there aren’t any storms in the Pacific which means dry conditions for the championship.  Still it takes a different breed of player to control the changes that is experienced playing near the ocean in April/May.
• The biggest rap against Harding Park is the greens, they are very flat with no undulations.  What that means is that the good ball strikers that don’t putt very well will have a big advantage this week.  Adam Scott is a perfect type of player, great ball striker but poor putter.  If you were to look at the players leading in greens hit that aren’t supreme putters, six names jump off the page that could do well this week, Martin Kaymer, Sergio Garcia, Zach Johnson, Webb Simpson, Rickie Fowler and J.B. Holmes. So hitting lots of green will be a must as putting will be a lot easier this week.  Look for a lot of ten to fifteen footers to be made.
• Driving will be a key.  The rough will be thick and for those players that hit it right or left of the rough, they wouldn’t get away with it because the fairways are lined with lots of trees.  Some will think that the course is short, yes 7,115 yards is short under today’s standards but remember the area of the country the course is in.  With fog coming in most evenings the course is very lush and the players will see very little roll.  So of course a straight driver will have an advantage over a long hitter this week.