It is not unusual for a PGA Tour player to change putters. But when you’re Rory McIlroy, and it appears you are doing so a couple weeks before the Masters, that’s news.

On Tuesday, multiple media outlets spotted the four-time major champion at Austin Country Club, site of this week’s WGC-Dell Technologies Match Play, wielding a Scotty Cameron by Titleist blade. It was reminiscent of the Cameron GSS prototype with chromatic bronze finish he used to win his first two majors at the 2011 US Open at Congressional CC and 2012 PGA at Kiawah’s Ocean Course.

McIlroy has been using a TaylorMade Spider X mallet, but has been struggling on the greens this season, ranking 173rd in strokes gained/putting while dropping .429 shots to the field per round. That means McIlroy is spotting his peers more than a shot-and-a-half on the greens over four rounds. Not great.

Confirmed: Rory McIlroy's Scotty Cameron Newport GSS is a new putter — not one he's used in the past. (The stamp is now on Rory, JT and Scottie's putters, if you're into that sort of minutiae.)

Told myself and @AndrewTursky that he's trying to "rekindle an old flame." pic.twitter.com/z6zXQwD2jh

— Jonathan Wall (@jonathanrwall) March 21, 2023

Still, the reasons players change putters are varied. Some are looking for a change of scenery that might break them out of a funk. That could certainly be the case here. Some players also prefer certain types of putters on particular types of grasses.

The latter scenario prompted Tiger Woods to move into a different flat stick at the 2010 Open Championship at St Andrews, leaving his long-time Scotty Cameron for a Nike Method 001. “It comes off faster,” he said. “I’ve always struggled on slower greens, but I haven’t had to make that much of an adjustment [now] because the ball is coming off a little bit quicker.”

That may well be the case with McIlroy as well, except in reverse. Golf Channel’s Todd Lewis reported that McIlroy told him he used the putter during two days of practice at Augusta National last week. “I loved it on the greens of Augusta National,” Lewis said McIlroy told him, adding, “It allows him to be more athletic and gives him more freedom.”

The switch is not insignificant. McIlroy has used a mallet-style putter for the better part of the last four years, and the toe hang of a blade provides a different feel. The blade likely has a lower moment of inertia than the Spider mallet, meaning mis-hits will come off differently as well.

Whether McIlroy can rekindle some old magic on the greens is to be determined. It wasn’t as if he was exactly a wizard on the greens in 2011 and 2012. Despite the major wins, McIlroy ranked T-141 and 88th in strokes gained/putting those two seasons, respectively.

McIlroy is also, reportedly, making a minor change to his driver set-up for the Match Play. Lewis reported that McIlroy changed out the shaft in his TaylorMade Stealth 2 Plus driver that he went to at the Players Championship, going from a 44.5 inch to a 44 inch, saying that the shorter shaft keeps him from getting stuck inside during the swing and helps reduce the chances of a two-way miss off the tee.

The post Rory McIlroy eyes big equipment change ahead of WGC-Match Play, Masters appeared first on Golf Digest Middle East.

The event revamped its format in 2015, ditching a straight single-elimination bracket in favour of 16 “pods” of four players, with everyone playing a round robin against the other three competitors. The players come from four categories divided by their World Ranking entering the event; the top 16 players are considered the ‘A’ group, the next 16 classified as ‘B’ and so forth. The players are grouped randomly by a ping-pong lottery machine. From there, the 16 group winners advance to a single-elimination bracket, contested over 18-hole matches on Saturday (Sweet 16 and quarter-finals) and Sunday (semi-finals and final). Here are the round-robin groups for the 2023 WGC-Dell Match Play:

Scottie Scheffler (1), Tom Kim (17), Alex Noren (38) Davis Riley (54)

Scottie Scheffler. Jared C Tilton

Scheffler has two wins in the past month — including an emphatic win at the Players Championship — and is the defending match-play champ. If that wasn’t enough, Scheffler also finished second at Austin CC in his debut in 2021 and proved his match-play merits at the 2021 Ryder Cup. Expect him to be a tour de force again back in the town where he went to college.
Kim has somewhat cooled off from his torrid stretch last autumn, finishing outside the top 30 in five of his last six starts, but if the Presidents Cup was any indication Kim should shine in this week’s format.
Noren has had a rough go in 2023, missing the cut three times in four tour starts. But he’s no pushover, evidenced by reaching the Match Play semi-finals in 2018 and the quarters the year before.
After a lights-out rookie year, Riley hasn’t quite taken the leap some expected this season. But the 26-year-old had a top-10 at Bay Hill and a decent showing last week at Innisbrook, signaling a turnaround may be near.

Jon Rahm (2), Billy Horschel (22), Keith Mitchell (39), Rickie Fowler (49)

Apparently the only thing capable of taking down Rahm in 2023 is a stomach bug. Look for his heater to continue in Austin, where Rahm has advanced out of pool play in three of five appearances, highlighted by a runner-up in 2017.
Horschel has been in a rut as of late, missing the cut in four of his last six starts and entering the week 146th in SG/tee-to-green. But Austin CC should be just the analgesic Horschel needs, as he won here in 2021 and advanced to the weekend last year.
Mitchell has been damn good this year (16th in scoring, 23rd in strokes gained) but more importantly, if he doesn’t make the PIP list after reposting that fantastic slice/driver whack/air-horn video, Golf Twitter should riot.
This is a big week for Fowler, who at No. 59 in the OWGR needs a good performance to move into the top 50 and to earn a Masters invite. He finished third at this event in 2014, but this will be the first time playing in Match Play in seven years.

Rory McIlroy (3), Keegan Bradley (20), Denny McCarthy (48), Scott Stallings (52)

Rory McIlroy. Sam Greenwood

McIlroy won the 2015 WGC-Match Play and has a runner-up and fourth-place finish at this tournament as well, but he has not advanced out of pool play in three of the past four years. Still, the wide-open confines of Austin CC are seemingly the perfect venue for McIlroy to get right with his recent driver woes.
According to DataGolf’s Ryder Cup forecast Bradley has the 14th-best odds to make the 12-mean USA team thanks to his mid-career revival this season (four top-10s, fourth in FedEx Cup). He can greatly improve that standing this week, although this event hasn’t been his forte, never advancing out of pool play.
McCarthy is making his Match Cup debut, but his short-game prowess (ranked second in SG/putting last year) should make the former U.S. Amateur runner-up a nightmare match-up.
Stallings is making his first Match Play appearance since 2014. He’s having a so-so season in 2023, making eight cuts in 11 starts but ranking 117th strokes gained.

Patrick Cantlay (4), Brian Harman (25), KH Lee (35), Nick Taylor (55)

Patrick Cantlay. Jed Jacobsohn

Cantlay is 0-for-4 in advancing out of pool play. However, he does arrive in Texas playing well, finishing in the top five at both the Genesis Invitational and the Arnold Palmer Invitational.
There are two surefire bets during Match Play week: 1) the term “vagaries” will be used no less than two dozen times and 2) Harman will be called a “bulldog”. Of course, he is a bulldog (University of Georgia, Class of 2009), and often plays like one, having made the weekend in two of his three Match Play appearances.
Lee has been relatively quiet this season but proved his match-play chops at last year’s Presidents Cup, winning two points for the Internationals.
Watch out for Taylor, who has four top-10s on the year and ranks 19th in strokes gained.

Max Homa (5), Hideki Matsuyama (18), Kevin Kisner (42), Justin Suh (63)

Max Homa. Michael Owens

Just two starts at the WGC-Match Play for Homa, and both were quick outs. No matter; Homa has five finishes of T-6 or better — including two wins — this season, and his all-around dexterity (seventh in SG/tee-to-green, third in strokes gained) should make him a formidable foe.
This format continues to give Matsuyama fits, as the former Masters champ has not advanced out of pool play in his last five starts.
That’s the opposite of Kisner. It’s unclear if Kisner is really good at match play or he just really enjoys Austin CC, but since the tournament has been held at the venue Kisner has been a juggernaut, finishing first or second in three of the past four Match Plays.
After a rough autumn Suh, the reigning Korn Ferry Tour Player of the Year, is coming into form, making five straight cuts, including a T-6 at the Players Championship two weeks ago.

Xander Schauffele (6), Tom Hoge (23), Aaron Wise (40), Cam Davis (64)

Xander Schauffele. Ben Jared

In his fifth WGC-Match Play start Schauffele will be searching for his first appearance in pool play. His play this season has been overshadowed by the displays from Scheffler, Rahm, McIlroy and Homa, but Schauffele is off to another solid start, ranking 10th in strokes gained and ninth in SG/approach
Hoge has shown last year’s breakout was no aberration, finishing T-14 or better seven times this season. Don’t be surprised if his second-shot aptitude (first in SG/approach) vaults him into the weekend, and perhaps even a first-class ride home.
Wise arrives in Austin cold, missing the cut in four of his past five starts. However, he is one of the best putters on tour (eighth in SG/putting), which could make him lethal in this format.
Davis is a bit of a wild card. Entering TPC Sawgrass the Aussie had missed five straight cuts before posting a T-6 at the Players. To keep that momentum going Davis will need to figure out a way to stop making big numbers (150th in bogey avoidance).

Will Zalatoris (7), Ryan Fox (29), Harris English (37), Andrew Putnam (56)

Zalatoris reached the quarter-finals in last year’s Match Play and will be looking for similar good vibes this week. His return from the back injury that sidelined him last autumn hasn’t been the most auspicious of performances. although he did finish fourth at Riviera last month, Zalatoris hasn’t been better than T-36 in four other full-field starts.
Fox plays mostly on the DP World Tour, where he won twice in 2022, but did play and make the cuts at both Bay Hill and TPC Sawgrass.
English has missed the cut in five of his last seven starts. But he made the most out of one of those made weekends, finishing T-2 at Bay Hill.
Putnam finished second in the fall at the Zozo Championship and T-4 early this year at the Sony Open. Since then, however, not much has gone right, missing the cut in four of his last five starts.

Viktor Hovland (8), Chris Kirk (28), Si Woo Kim (34), Matt Kuchar (59)

VIktor Hovland. Andrew Redington

Hovland finished T-3 at the Players, continuing a run of strong play (eighth in SG/off-the-tee, 15th in strokes gained). While he’s making strides in the short game, he’ll need it to be right this week, as Austin CC calls for creativity around the greens.
Kirk is a dead-eye from 125-to-150 yards (first in approach) and just as good at anything less than 125 (16th in approach). As long as he keeps it in the ballpark — which shouldn’t be a problem at Austin CC —Kirk could be trouble.
Kim is 19th in SG/tee-to-green, which hasn’t quite reflected in his performances aside from his win at Sony Open. He hasn’t played great at Match Play, just making the weekend once in five starts.
Don’t sleep on Kuchar; he’s finished third or better four times at Match Play, including a runner-up in 2019.

Collin Morikawa (9), Jason Day (32), Adam Svensson (44), Victor Perez (51)

Collin Morikawa. Ben Jared

Morikawa is in the midst of a really, really good year, entering Austin ranked third in SG/approach and four in SG/tee-to-green. Made it out of pool play last year. If his putter cooperates, he has the all-around game to make it to the finals.
According to DataGolf, only Rahm, McIlroy and Scheffler have a better true strokes-gained figure than Day over the past three months. However, since winning the event in 2016, Day has not advanced out of pool play.
Svensson made news with his win at the RSM Classic in the fall, yet has quietly been putting together some good golf with three top-25s in his last four starts.
Perez has made only one start at the WGC-Match Play but made that start memorable, reaching the semi-finals in 2021.

Tony Finau (10), Kurt Kitayama (19), Adrian Meronk (45), Christiaan Bezuidenhout (60)

Tony Finau. Logan Riely

Finau has never looked comfortable at Austin CC and the results show, failing to advance out of his pool in four tries. Ranking third on tour in birdie average, certainly has the penchant of putting up red numbers to bury an opponent, but just as critical will be keeping the big numbers at bay (11th in bogey avoidance).
Which Kitayama will show up: The guy who outlasted some of the biggest names in golf at Bay Hill, or the guy who’s finished T-73 or worse in four of his last six starts?
Meronk’s in the field thanks to a win at last year’s Australian Open. A solid week could put the Polish native in the running for a Ryder Cup spot
At 135th in strokes gained, Bezuidenhout enters as one of the coldest players in the field. Even so, he was in the mix at the Players before a final-round 74 took him out of the proceedings.

Matt Fitzpatrick (11), Sahith Theegala (26), Min Woo Lee (41), JJ Spaun (61)

Matt Fitzpatrick. DP World Tourq

Fitzpatrick won the 2013 USAmateur and 2012 British Boys Amateur, so the Englishman does have some big match-play hardware on his mantle. Those feats have yet to transfer to the professional level, as Fitzpatrick has yet to score a point in five Ryder Cup matches and is 0-for-6 in advancing out of his pod at the WGC-Match Play. He’s too good of a player for this record to continue, so look for a turnaround this week.
Theegala enters outside the top 50 in strokes gained but that doesn’t quite tell his story, finishing T-6 or better five times this year. His penchant for racking up red figures (18th in birdie average) should make him a fun watch.
Lee proved he could hang at the Players, still managing a T-6 when nothing went right on Sunday. A good week at the Match Play could earn him PGA Tour membership for next season.
Spaun is making his Match Play debut, but it doesn’t come at the best of times, as he has missed the cut in four of his last five starts.

Jordan Spieth (12), Shane Lowry (21), Taylor Montgomery (47), Mackenzie Hughes (50)

Jordan Spieth. R&A

Spieth made the quarter-finals in his Match Play debut in 2014 but hasn’t done much since, making it out of pool play just once in his last five starts. However, Spieth enters the week in form, finishing T-6 or better in three of his past five outings.
Lowry has not advanced out of pool play since the tournament moved to the round-robin format. Nevertheless, his short-game wizardry should keep him in the mix.
Speaking of short games, Montgomery’s flat stick (second in SG/putting) should put the rest of his pod on upset alert.
Hughes won at the Sanderson last fall but has since been all over the map, his best finish a T-50 in five full-field events in 2023.

Sam Burns (13), Seamus Power (30), Adam Scott (33), Adam Hadwin (53)

Sam Burns. Julio Aguilar

It has been a somewhat up-and-down season for Burns, entering 44th in strokes gained and 115th in approach. He did log a sixth-place finish at the Valspar. Making his tournament debut, as he withdrew from last year’s event after winning at Innisbrook the week before.
A really good autumn (three top-fives, including a win) puts Power in Ryder Cup consideration. He’s kept his name in the conversation with four top-25s in 2023, and reaching the semi-finals this week may lock up an invitation to Rome.
He’s played just five times this year, but Scott hasn’t done much in those starts (124th in strokes gained). Scott did reach the weekend at last year’s Match Play, although it was the first time he’s reached the final 16 in this event since 2005.
Ranking 30th in strokes gained and 21st in bogey avoidance, Hadwin may be one of the tougher ‘D’ players in the field.

Tyrrell Hatton (14), Russell Henley (31), Lucas Herbert (46), Ben Griffin (62)

Tyrrell Hatton. David Cannon

Sneaky-good year for the Englishman, who is coming off a runner-up at the Players along with a T-4 at the API and T-6 at the WM Phoenix Open. That’s not welcomed news to those in his group, as Hatton has advanced to the weekend in three of his last four Match Play starts.
Henley has finished inside the top 15 just once in 10 starts this season, but he made the most of that weekend, winning at Mayakoba last autumn. 
Herbert is coming off a brutal showing at the Players, where he went 82-85. On the flip side, Griffin continued his solid rookie season by playing his way into the final Saturday group at TPC Sawgrass. This tournament is historically not kind to first-timers, but Griffin’s short game makes him a viable dark horse.

Cameron Young (15), Sepp Straka (27), Corey Conners (36), Davis Thompson (57)

Cameron Young. Mike Ehrmann

Calling it a “sophomore slump” is perhaps unfair, but the reigning Rookie of the Year hasn’t been the same player as he was in 2022. Young enters the week 45th in strokes gained after finishing 15th in the category last campaign. He’s still among the league leaders in birdies (fourth), but a number of bad holes continue to creep in (101st in bogey avoidance). Luckily this format allows for mistakes to be quickly forgotten, giving Young a platform to bounce back this week.
Straka doesn’t make many birdies (124th in birdie average) but a solid approach game should give him chances to make things uncomfortable for his competition.
Conners has been a top 25 player on tour this season in SG/off-the-tee. If he can clean up the short game (153rd around-the-green, 151st in putting), he could cause problems.
Since nearly winning the American Express, Thompson has seen him game go into a mini-slump, failing to finish T-53 in five starts. He’s too talented of a player for that streak to continue.

Sungjae Im (16), Tommy Fleetwood (24), JT Poston (43), Maverick McNealy (58)

Sungjae Im. Eakin Howard

Im is 12th in strokes gained and is 11th in scoring. Is 0-for-2 at advancing out of pool play, yet his tee-to-green game paints the profile of a player that can go far in this event.
Could this finally be the week Fleetwood earns his first PGA Tour victory? A T-3 at the Valspar provides hope and he reached the quarterfinals here two years ago.
Poston tends to run hot (six top-25s in 13 starts) and cold (five missed cuts) with nothing in between, which makes him an interesting guy to watch in this format.
McNealy leads the tour in SG/putting and has three top-10s this year. After dealing with injuries last month, his game appears to be back on track, making the cut at both the Players and the Valspar.

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By Joel Beall
Lucas Bjerregaard introduced himself to many golf fans by taking down Tiger Woods in the WGC-Dell Technologies Match Play. The 27-year-star will get the rest of the season to become properly acquainted with American galleries.

On Monday, the PGA Tour announced the Denmark star has accepted special temporary membership for the remainder of the 2019 campaign.

Bjerregaard nearly missed out on the honour at the WGC in Austin, as a win in the semi-finals or consolation match would have given him enough points to pass Ben Martin’s 266 (last season’s No. 150 on the FedEx Cup standings, which serves as the benchmark for this status).

“Yeah, it’s obviously a goal of mine,” Bjerregaard said after he lost to Francesco Molinari. “I would love to play over here a bit more. I’ve really enjoyed these last few weeks. So, yeah, it would be nice to have the option to play over here a bit more at least. Hopefully, I can play well the next few weeks and get that done.”

Bjerregaard, currently ranked No. 44 in the world, was able to pull that off with a T-21 finish at the Masters.

He is the only active tour player from Denmark and joins Matthew Fitzpatrick as the second player to earn temporary membership this season. Although he is ineligible for the FedEx Cup Playoffs (unless he wins a PGA Tour event), Bjerregaard can accept unlimited sponsor exemptions for the remainder of this season.

Bjerregaard’s addition means 46 of the top 50 players in the world have PGA Tour status.

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By Joel Beall
Hope you’re sitting down: there was a rules controversy at a golf event this weekend. But for once the much-maligned rule book isn’t so much as fault as are the infamous “vagaries” of match play.

To catch you up to speed: Garcia and Kuchar were locked in a quarterfinal duel when things went awry at the par-3 seventh at Austin C.C. Trailing Kuchar by one, Garcia missed a seven-footer for par to win the hole, his ball coming to rest an inch or two away from the cup. A distance Suzann Pettersen would concede as good.

However, Garcia—never a model of equanimity—went after his putt and gave it a quick love-tap, and the ball lipped out. Due to the Spaniard’s swiftness, Kuchar did not have a chance to concede the putt.

Matt Kuchar did not have a chance to concede Sergio Garcia's second putt.

Therefore, Garcia lost the hole.

Kuchar told the official he wanted to give Garcia the putt, but that cannot be done retroactively. pic.twitter.com/AJFF8N5J7h

— PGA TOUR (@PGATOUR) March 30, 2019

As such, Garcia lost the hole, which clearly did not sit well. On the next green, the 2017 Masters champ took an angry full swing at a missed putt. Cameras then caught a tense back and forth between Kuchar and Garcia at the 10th hole. Tensions (relatively) returned to normal for the rest of the match, which Kuchar won, 2 up.

But after the round, Kuchar gaslit the situation by stating Garcia had asked Kuchar to concede a hole to make things fair. Even against the backdrop of this unfortunate circumstance, a bizarre request at this level of competition.

In the moment, many—led by NBC Sports’ Paul Azinger—were quick to blame the Spaniard. Upon further review, more voices, including those of fellow players, came to Garcia’s defence. So who should shoulder the blame: Garcia or Kuchar? Two of Golf Digest’s own, digital editor Sam Weinman and staff writer Joel Beall, speak for each side of the debate.

It’s Sergio’s Fault

Consider for a moment this alternate-world scenario: You are stopped at a traffic light when a car hits you from behind. Both cars are damaged, and when you emerge from your vehicle, the other driver explains that he was temporarily blinded by the sun, and he didn’t mean to hit you.

“That’s a tough break,” you say.

“I know, right?” he says. “Maybe because of my bad luck, we should split the cost of the repairs.”

To which you reply, “Nice try.”

In case you couldn’t tell, the car wreck in question here is the Garcia-Kucar debacle. And the driver looking to share the blame is Garcia.

Even if we can all agree that Garcia fell victim to an arcane golf rule when he hockey-pucked his way around the seventh green on Saturday—or that his opponent bungled the concession and its aftermath— it was still a misfortune that began and ended with him. It might not have been fair, but even less fair would have been to expect Kuchar to shoulder some of the blame by asking him to concede an ensuing hole. A golfer has enough to deal with in the heat of battle. To be forced to atone for another player’s haste shouldn’t have to be one of them — Sam Weinman

It’s Kuchar’s Fault

Easy to blame Sergio. This, after all, is the same cat who went ballistic in a Saudi beach two months ago. But while Garcia wasn’t right, it’s Kuchar that’s in the wrong.

This was a non-issue until Kuchar called over an official. That Kuchar played dumb—he told official Robby Ware, “Listen, I don’t know how to handle this, but I didn’t concede the putt, Sergio missed the putt” made matters worse. Kuchar’s been on tour for two decades; he knew what he was doing. His “Gee Golly” act doesn’t play anymore.

As personalities like James Hahn, Lee Westwood, caddie Ian Finnis and former player/SkySports commentator Tony Johnstone pointed out, the 40-year-old could have walked to the next tee and made nothing of it. If an official would have stepped in, Kuchar could have diffused the situation with, “I said it was good.” As this season has shown, sometimes common sense needs to overrule the letter of the law.

Instead, Kuchar jumped at the chance to use the rules to his advantage. The gamesmanship worked; he won the hole, and Sergio was never the same for the rest of the match. The cost? Another shot to a suddenly-suspect reputation. — Joel Beall

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By E. Michael Johnson
Kevin Kisner doesn’t hit it very far, but he finds fairways with remarkable regularity, and that’s a trait that always plays well in match play, as it puts relentless pressure on your opponent. Kisner carded just three birdies in winning the WGC-Dell Technologies Match Play final against Matt Kuchar, but hit enough fairways (9 out of 13), to avoid putting himself in a poor position, forcing Kuchar to try and make up ground, which he couldn’t as Kisner won 3 & 2.

In becoming the lowest seed (48th) to win the Match Play since Geoff Ogilvy 15 years ago, Kisner hit 11 fairways in downing Francesco Molinari in the morning semifinals before taking on Kuchar in the afternoon. In that match, Kuchar simply couldn’t get anything going, making two bogeys and drowning his tee shot on the par-3 11th, handing Kisner the hole to take him to 2 up.

Kisner’s driver is Callaway’s Epic Flash Sub Zero—the lower spinning model of the Epic Flash family. The driver utilizes the company’s Flash Face technology, where artificial intelligence was used to create a face whose back is rippled in areas to create more ball speed across a larger portion of the face. Kisner first put the driver in play at the Sony Open in January. Although the club features a movable weight in the rear sole, Kisner keeps it in the neutral position.

Of course, when you hit it as straight as Kisner, why would you want to alter ball flight anyway.

What Kevin Kisner had in the bag at the WGC-Dell Technologies Match Play

Ball: Titleist Pro V1
Driver: Callaway Epic Flash Sub Zero (Aldila NV 2KKV 65 TX), 9 degrees
3-wood: Callaway Epic Flash Sub Zero, 13.5 degrees
5-wood: Callaway Rogue Sub Zero, 18 degrees
Irons (3-4): Callaway Apex UT; (5-9): Callaway Apex Pro; (PW): Titleist Vokey SM7
Wedges: Titleist Vokey SM7 (52, 58 degrees)
Putter: Odyssey White Hot Pro #7

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By Christopher Powers
The PGA Tour heads to Texas this week for the WGC-Dell Technologies Match Play, the third of four World Golf Championships this season. This marks the fourth season the event will be held at Austin Country Club in Austin, Texas.

This also marks the fifth year of the event’s new, pool-play format, which doesn’t feel so new any more. The 64 players are broken up into 16 groups of four, and everyone plays each other once in each group, with one man advancing to the round of 16. A won match is a full point and a halved match is a half of a point. The player with the most points at the end of all three matches moves on to the round of 16, and any ties are decided in a sudden-death playoff.

The World Cup style format has yielded some exciting results, with Rory McIlroy, Jason Day, Dustin Johnson and Bubba Watson claiming wins in the last four years. All four former winners are in the field this year, as is Tiger Woods, who will be playing in this format for the first time in his career. Woods is in a group this year with Brandt Snedeker, Aaron Wise and Patrick Cantlay. The group packing the most star power, Group 12, consists of Day, Phil Mickelson, Jim Furyk and Henrik Stenson.

Tee times for Sunday’s matches are below. Check back here each day for the latest tee times.

Sunday tee times for the Semifinal matches (all times ET)

Francesco Molinari vs. Kevin Kisner — 10:05 a.m.

Lucas Bjerregaard vs. Matt Kuchar — 10:20 a.m.

The post 2019 WGC-Dell Match Play Semifinals tee times appeared first on Golf Digest Middle East.

That bit of misguided fandom got me thinking: If I bought a ticket and decided to camp out at one hole, what’s my best bet to ensure some back-nine drama, but also be guaranteed the match won’t finish before it gets to me? My answer, at least for Austin C.C., is the 13th hole. It’s probably the best “match play” hole because of the way it forces the players to lay up or drive the green at great risk. It’s set up ideally to switch or exacerbate the existing momentum, and it routinely punishes desperate player. Plus, you can see everything from the ropes, all the way from tee to green, and there are boats to watch between the action.

Yet, if any actual spectators hit upon the same solution, they would have been deeply disappointed in Sunday’s championship match. Bubba Watson defeated Kevin Kisner, 7 and 6, ending even the pretense of drama with a title-clinching birdie on the 12th hole. The only suspense was whether he’d cry during his TV interview—he’s always been quick to tears, but I wasn’t sure if a non-Masters, non-coming-back-from-a-long-drought-at-Riviera win would evoke the same poignancy, especially when the tension ran out of the match on about the fifth hole.

As it turns out, yes, he cried:

Tears of joy from @BubbaWatson.

“Without my mom’s upbringing who knows what I’d be doing.” pic.twitter.com/N6e0QGVrFV

— PGA TOUR (@PGATOUR) March 25, 2018

Kisner shed no tears, of course. The eyes that looked so narrow and fierce in a blowout win of Ian Poulter on Saturday afternoon (a Ryder Cup audition?), and in his 19-hole duel with Noren on Sunday morning, had widened into a faraway stare by the seventh hole, when Bubba’s par put him 6 up. By that point, the only hole Kisner hadn’t lost came at the sixth, when Bubba missed a five-foot birdie putt.

Gregory Shamus/Getty Images
Watson reacts after winning the third hole to go 3 up Kevin Kisner in the championship match of the WGC-Dell Match Play. He’d win in a rout, 7 and 6, for his second career WGC title.

Having started the match trying to notch a third career PGA Tour title, and the biggest of his seven-year PGA Tour career, the 34-year-old Kisner was merely trying to keep from being on the bad side of history over the closing stretch by losing 9 and 8 in the minimum number of holes. The final 7-and-6 deficit still goes down as the most lopsided since the WGC moved to an 18-hole final in 2011. Even in the 36-hole final era, which stretched from 1999 to 2010, only one finalist got beat worse—Stewart Cink, who lost to Tiger Woods, 8 and 7, in 2008.

On Kisner’s penultimate hole, the 11th, he had to walk along a narrow footpath bordered on one side by bunkers and on the other by the crowd of fans held back by a thin rope. Bubba had passed a moment earlier, and the cheers fell down around him with the volume you’d expect. But as Kisner strode past, 7 down and on the verge of defeat, the gallery’s encouragement had a tentative aspect, as though they were trying to figure out the right thing to say to a friend who had just been fired by an indifferent boss. Kisner won that hole with a long birdie putt, and they roared, but everyone knew it was merely a stay of execution, Kisner included.

After the inevitable loss, Kisner, now with seven runner-up finishes in the last four years, tied for second most on tour in that time frame, sounded like a man trying to explain a car crash after falling asleep at the wheel:

“I was like, what in the world is going on? … I don’t know what to call it right now. I just know it wasn’t right. It was right all the way up until the second tee ball, and then I just didn’t know what was going on. … Oh, well, it went left and right, not straight. I don’t know what else to say besides that. … It was just pitiful, man, I couldn’t hit anything where I was looking.”

When asked to describe the feeling, Kisner chose two words: Helpless and lonely. And I think the latter was truest—walking along the course, understanding the imminence of defeat, he was the solitary man personified. Nobody could help him. Nobody could even touch him.

Richard Heathcote/Getty Images
After an exhausting extra holes win in the semifinals, Kisner couldn’t get anything right in the final against Watson.

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By Shane Ryan
AUSTIN — One of the many surprising things about Bubba Watson is that when he’s in high spirits, he’s funny. After his easy 5-and-3 win over Kiradech Aphibarnrat in the quarterfinals of the WGC-Dell Technologies Match Play, Watson sailed through the usual TV interviews in light spirits—Golf Channel, Sky Sports, PGA Tour radio, European Tour whatever—and when told he had one more stop to make for the lowly writers, he couldn’t resist a bit of sarcasm: “Sure, I’ve been out here since 5 a.m., why don’t we do a few more?”

But he was smiling, and his heart wasn’t in the dark place. It’s easy to tell when Bubba has the black cloud over him, and this wasn’t one of those times—once on the dreaded interview stage, he positively chewed up the scenery, a ham in all his glory:

Q. Your next opponent, you’re the only one that stands between him and World No. 1. I wonder if you have any comment on that?

BUBBA WATSON: Does he have to win the tournament, too? For the right price, he can win. No … you didn’t hear that. We’ll take that from the record book.

and:

BUBBA WATSON: A few years ago in Tucson, wasn’t it the same thing with Martin Kaymer? Martin Kaymer beat me, and I think he had to beat me to become No. 1. I guess I’m good at that. If you want No. 1, just beat me, and you’ll be No. 1.

He even came armed with one of his classic Bubba stories that will surely be the lead anecdote in a dozen blog posts and newspaper stories. Get this—he and the family have a vacation coming up, and he scheduled a flight out of the country for Sunday morning, because he never made it to the final day of this tournament and thought, why not? He probably wouldn’t be around anyway. Plus, flights were cheaper on Sunday. But now…now Bubba has to cancel that flight, and his wife’s cell phone is off, and boy is she going to be mad when she finds out!

He delivered the punch line in vintage good-ole-boy rhythm:

“I’m going to have to tell her that we ain’t making it,” he said. “So it would be happy from the golf standpoint, but from the other side it will not be happy.”

Does it matter if a few of the details are a little dubious? That it’s tough to believe his wife won’t know he won his match without a “honey, you better sit down” phone call? That the volunteer standing at the back of the press conference had a point when she whispered, “doesn’t he have enough money not to worry about booking the cheap flight?” That, even though it’s true that he’s never made it to Sunday in Austin, he has reached the final day of this tournament in 2011?

No, actually, it doesn’t—Bubba was in sublime storyteller mode, a raconteur in his element, and if the edges had to be blurred on a few details to make it land a little better, so be it.

And he deserved the creative license, because he absolutely steamrolled Aphibarnrat on Saturday afternoon. After Bubba took a 1-up advantage on the seventh green, I watched the best golfer in Thailand as he started the long walk to the eighth. The temperature fell somewhere in the mid-to-high 80s, but it felt hotter, the way it always does in the early spring when the sun beats down before we’re acclimated to summer weather. And Austin Country Club itself is a brutal walking course—when you’re not beating your way up steep hills, you’re balancing on sideways slopes, wondering why your ankles are so sore and trying not to give the drunk fans any extra entertainment by wiping out on the slick, desiccated grass. I learned quickly how to take a hiatus between the eighth and 11th holes when following a group, if for no other reason than to catch a breather and rest my legs.

Aphibarnrat had no such luxury when he played a grueling 18-hole match with Charles Howell III this morning (he won 1-up with wins on 17 and 18), and now he was being asked to do it again. He is not a fit man (charitably), and anyone who watched him for more than ten seconds after the 7th hole would have concluded first that he was not enjoying himself, and second that he had absolutely no chance to beat Bubba Watson. Spilling out of his shirt (alive with 3-D pentagons, the words “Thailand fragrant property” printed on one breast, and a griffin-like creature on the other), he trudged through the course rather than walked, and his face bore the expression of an amateur biker trying to ascend the last half mile of a category four mountain climb. When the terrain turned hilly, he slouched, torso slumped forward like Charlie Brown at his saddest.

Meanwhile, Bubba had his usual self-consciously erect posture, shoulders thrown back, eyes up, tall and defiant. Some match play golfers like to walk ahead of their opponents, as a sort of intimidation tactic, but it occurred to me as I watched Aphibarnrat amble toward the eighth tee that Bubba had no choice in the matter—with his long strides, he could not have walked behind him if he tried.

Bubba gave the ninth hole away with a chunked wedge to bring his opponent back to 1-down, but from that point on, it was nothing but disaster for the big man. An inexplicable wedge followed by an inexplicable pitch gave Bubba the 10th hole, and Aphibarnrat followed that by three-putting the 11th. Bubba stood on high ground, watching him with both hands on his hips, one foot cocked out, and when the putt rolled past, he and Ted Scott moved without a word to the 12th tee.

“He’s hot-headed, you got this, you’re in his head already,” one fan shouted to Aphibarnrat, but this strange and inaccurate encouragement failed to inspire him as he yanked his drive left. Watson and Scott stared intently at the hole on his approach, silent, as though if they looked long enough the secret to success might rise mirage-like from the water on the left. Boats looked on from “Lake Austin,” which is not a lake at all but a small reservoir where the Colorado River becomes very slightly wider, and one of the boats had a cameraman, an audio tech with a boom mic, and a dozen women wearing only bikinis. They shouted Bubba’s name in unison, and for once in his life he looked a little shy as he half-raised his putter to them.

The 12th hole is gorgeous, with the rusted parabola of the 360 bridge and the limestone cliffs as a backdrop, but its chief appeal to Aphibarnrat must have been the topography—it was downhill. But that didn’t save him from another poor chip, and another lost hole, after which he looked to the sky with a silent groan, a supplication to who knows what. The same thing on the driveable 13th, past the pond smelling of algae and gasoline, where Bubba played the smart move by laying up with iron, but Aphibarnrat refused to take the bait, and did the same. On the walk up the fairway, Bubba chatted with him about the boats, more casual as he sensed the end, but even so he couldn’t make himself walk slow enough and was soon shouting a story over his shoulder from 20 yards ahead as Aphibarnrat mumbled something about jet skis.

Then the big man chunked yet another wedge, made a par-saving putt that looked significant but was not, and fell 4-down when Bubba holed his birdie. Two mundane holes later, the match was over, and Bubba had reached the semifinals at the Match Play for the first time in seven years. In 2011, as he noted, he stood between Martin Kaymer and the number one world ranking, and tomorrow he will play the same role for Justin Thomas.

“It’ll just be a friendly game,” he said. “And hopefully I’m more friendly at the end than he is.”

I hope so too. It’s that, or the black cloud.

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