ESPN Golf

Originally Published: February 28, 2009

Match play yields positives, negatives

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By Bob Harig
ESPN.com
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MARANA, Ariz. -- For those who wonder why the PGA Tour doesn't schedule more match play events, Saturday offered a pretty good clue.

Nothing against the finalists at the Accenture Match Play Championship -- Australia's Geoff Ogilvy and England's Paul Casey are two of the game's established players who actually offer up an excellent final -- but weekend rounds at professional golf tournaments are supposed to be festive occasions, not the yawner that match play inevitably produces.

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Stan Badz/Getty ImagesGeoff Ogilvy and Paul Casey will have the Ritz-Carlton course nearly all to themselves Sunday in the WGC-Match Play final. And that's not necessarily a good thing.

It is simply the nature of the event -- not necessarily the participants -- that always makes this such a risky venture.

While most people were still climbing out of bed Saturday morning, the quarterfinalists at this $8.5 million event were hard at work in the desert, fighting off sleep and the morning chill.

By the time they finished and spectators began to straggle onto the grounds at the Ritz-Carlton Golf Club, the temperature had warmed considerably and two of the most compelling names in the tournament -- Ernie Els and Rory McIlroy -- were packing their bags.

It's just different.

On Wednesday, you had one of the most exciting days of the golf year, and it wasn't all just because Tiger Woods was making his much-anticipated comeback following a nearly nine-month absence.

The lose-and-go-home aspect of the format makes those 32 matches on this World Golf Championship event's first day full of tension. Players travel a long way to possibly play just a single match, making for a final-round feel to the proceedings. That kind of early-round pressure is rarely found, save for a major.

Trouble is, when it's time for the final day, that drama is missing. Only two players will have a chance to win Sunday, down from as many as a dozen who had that same opportunity on Feb. 22 at the Northern Trust Open, where fans could scatter all about the course and watch some 70 players in action. The loser Sunday gets a nice consolation prize of $850,000.

When Ogilvy and Casey step to the first tee for their 36-hole match, they will be the only players that spectators can watch until the consolation encounter between Stewart Cink and Ross Fisher tees off. Four players is all you get, which can't be fun for the television folks, either.

"When you're out there, it's not strange," said Ogilvy, who won the Match Play Championship three years ago at La Costa in California over Davis Love III, then lost down the road at Dove Mountain in the finals to Henrik Stenson in 2007. "But when we're alone for breakfast, there's 25 tables in there and the Australians and I are kind of walking one side of the room to the other and you end up having breakfast together with Davis -- it's kind of weird.

"The locker room attendant is standing over you the whole time because you're only one of two guys, you know. That sort of stuff. You pull into the parking lot and there's two cars. That's it. Where all the other players park, there's no cars. When you're playing, it seems normal, but it's all the little stuff. You're on the range and one goes to one side of the range, one goes to the other. That's the odd part."

This is nobody's fault, really. Ideas have been suggested -- stroke-play qualifying, more consolation matches, double-elimination -- to keep more players around on the weekend. But if the format is true match play, this is what you get -- and an announced attendance of just 7,600 spectators Saturday.

And you can't blame this on Woods' exit, either. Even though he would bring far more interest and excitement if he were around, the world's No. 1 player simply happens to help camouflage many of the event's issues, even on the final day. (Saturday attendance a year ago was 7,500 spectators with Woods in contention.)

Last year, Woods defeated Cink in a 8-and-7 sleep-inducer, but because it was Woods and he was in the midst of a four-tournament PGA Tour winning streak, there was a mini buzz about the whole thing. Certainly were Woods playing for his first victory since the U.S. Open, there would be a different vibe, and NBC would love to have him regardless.

That excitement left this year when Woods did, but not because there was anything wrong with the players remaining. It was more because there weren't enough of them remaining. Only 16 players were left for Friday's proceedings, and just eight Saturday morning.

Now we're down to two, with the winner pocketing $1.4 million. Ogilvy defeated McIlroy in the morning then handled Cink 4 and 2 in the afternoon. Casey, who has not trailed a single hole the entire tournament, first dispatched Sean O'Hair on Saturday morning then knocked off fellow Brit Fisher 2 and 1 later in the day.

Although we are often numbed by the financial numbers, a $550,000 difference is nothing to be dismissed here, even though both players would much prefer to talk about winning the championship than the cash.

For Ogilvy, 31, who is in the final for the third time in four years and ranked eighth in the world, it would be his third World Golf Championship title and he would join Woods (who has 15) as the only players to claim that many. For Casey, 31, who is 23rd in the world, it is a chance to win his first PGA Tour event after nine victories on the European Tour, including one in January at the Abu Dhabi Championship.

"It would obviously mean an awful lot," Casey said.

Interestingly, the Aussie and the Englishman make their homes two hours west on I-10 in Scottsdale. They are members of the same Whisper Rock Golf Club there, and on a whim, decided to come down to the site of the Match Play Championship on Feb. 13 for a practice round together. They whizzed around the course, made note of the unusual greens, skipped the 12th hole so they wouldn't have to wait on a foursome, then left to go about their business.

Ogilvy played in L.A. the next week, where he tied for 30th. Casey headed to Australia for the Johnnie Walker Classic, and tied for 10th.

Now they meet in the finals of a prestigious tournament just 16 days later, two guys who will have to walk instead of ride, competing at golf the way the game was first conceived in a head-to-head matchup, with a course nearly all to themselves.

It is undoubtedly a huge deal for them, just a bit strange for the rest of us.

Bob Harig covers golf for ESPN.com. He can be reached at BobHarig@gmail.com.