Match Play soaking, but West Coast swing shines bright
CARLSBAD, Calif. -- Thanks to a day-long rainstorm that turned La Costa into a stopped-up sink, the Accenture Match Play Championship, which tees off Wednesday, will play longer than a Russian novel. Longer, even, than the odds that No. 1 seed Tiger Woods and No. 2 seed Ernie Els will meet in the 36-hole final Sunday.
After receiving more than two inches of rain, three fairways -- the first, ninth and 18th -- looked Tuesday afternoon as if they had been planted by Uncle Ben. Water sat in bunkers across the course.
"We've been here a number of years," PGA Tour senior rules director Mike Shea said. "You won't believe how dry it will be (Wednesday)." Shea sounded confident that there would not be a delay in play.
However, because the greenskeeping crew won't be able to mow the course Tuesday night, he expected that players would be able to place the ball within the fairway, rules that Woods referred to as "lift, clean and cheat."
The La Costa course, already extended by 261 yards in the past year, will play even longer than the scorecard length of 7,247 yards. Long courses favor long hitters, and no one is hitting it longer than Els (319.6 yards). In five events on the PGA and European Tours, Els has four firsts and a second, which is a refreshing change for those of us who like to recognize our winners.
A year ago, the PGA Tour conducted its own bit of reality TV. Joe Millionaire, meet Matt Gogel, Ian Leggatt, Spike McRoy and Phil Tataurangi. Eighteen first-time winners, and most of them still need to wear photo IDs to get inside the ropes. The party line on this phenomenon is that the depth of the PGA Tour is what differentiates the sport from tennis, that there are so many potential champions is a gift handed to us by God and the solid-core ball.
With the West Coast swing of the 2003 Tour one week short of completion, take a look at the winners so far this season: Els (twice), Mike Weir (twice), Vijay Singh, Davis Love III and Woods. That's four winners of major championships and Weir, who has won a Tour Championship and a World Golf Championship. The first-time winner is as out of date as, "Is that your final answer?"
"Last year we had 18 first-time winners, and the bigger-name players didn't like that very much, I guess," Kevin Sutherland, the who-he defending champion of the Match Play, said with a smile Tuesday.
Before the Els/Weir argument over who the West Coast MVP will be begins, let's throw in a third candidate: the West Coast swing itself. In the mid-1990s, tour stars worn out by the silly season events of November and December rarely tuned up their games before the tour came to Florida.
That attitude, Phil Mickelson said, "has changed a lot ... For a long time, Doral was always the tournament that seemed to start the year, where you could fall behind on the money list and catch up with that purse."
In 1998, the tour stepped in and established a bonus purse of $1,000,000 for the top three money winners in the West Coast events. Bigger than the bonus, however, has been the increasing importance of a player's standing on the money list and in the World Golf Ranking.
"Things are more intense than they used to be, " Scott Verplank said. "The tour is a bigger deal. Golf is a bigger deal. Guys are greedy. There's a lot of money to be made on the West Coast."
Scott Hoch, at 47, the second oldest player in the field behind his Wake Forest teammate, 49-year-old Jay Haas, skipped the West Coast until last week, when he finished tied for 51st at Riviera.
"The West Coast is built for big hitters," Hoch said Tuesday, "more so now than it used to be. It always seemed to be that way. Maybe the guys are getting longer and I'm not. The older I get, that may be the case."
The other trait that the 2003 winners share in common is a refreshing change in attitude. Els has spoken of the inner peace he feels now that he is focusing on his family and not on how he measures up to Woods. Tiger, with a first place and a fifth in two starts, broke into a wide smile and as he described the difference for him between last year and this year. It comes down to the arthroscopic surgery he underwent on his left knee on Dec. 12.
"Granted, I had a very successful year," said Woods, referring to his third Masters championship and four other victories, "but I had a lot of sleepless nights because of all the pain I had to endure last year. It wasn't a whole lot of fun getting out there and having to play on some of those days. It's neat to come out here and practice, like today, and hit any shot I want and be pain-free."
Weir attributes his success to a decision he made after last season to enjoy himself more. He attempted to get longer last year, and the changes he made didn't hold up under pressure, especially under the pressure he applied to himself.
"The changes caused me a little anxiety," he said. "I was working so hard on my swing that I neglected my short game. My wedge game was horrible. When I had it in my hand, it was 30 feet."
The Match Play Championship will be the sternest test of whether the West Coast swing is really the avenue of the stars. In four years, the most visible Match Play champion has been Darren Clarke of Northern Ireland, whose fame on this side of the Atlantic derives almost exclusively from his 4-and-3 victory over Woods in the 2000 Match Play final.
The thrill of an 18-hole match lies in the fact that anyone can win. Woods, Mickelson, and David Duval, the top three seeds a year ago, proved as much a year ago when they fell to Peter O'Malley, John Cook and Sutherland, respectively.
"Eighteen holes of golf would be like sitting down and playing blackjack for 20 minutes," Mickelson said. "There's a good chance you could win. You sit there and play for 20 hours, there's a better chance you'll lose. The more holes you play, the better the chance that the top player will come out."
The dirty little secret of the Match Play Championship is that the most exciting day of the tournament is Wednesday, when stars have had a history of falling in California. The long, rain-lengthened course, and the dominant start by the tour's best players will make the upsets all the sweeter. Make no mistake -- there will be upsets.
Ivan Maisel is a senior writer at ESPN.com. He can be reached at ivan.maisel@espn3.com.
