"Arguments for a 36-hole final dry up pretty quickly -- especially when this option offers the potential of more compelling, star-studded action deeper into the week."

John Maginnes weighs the pros and cons of the WGC match play's 36-hole final and can't find any good reasons to keep playing two rounds for the finale.

His piece appears on the Mothership's own website, so maybe this idea is gaining momentum? (Or, for conspiracy theorists, the decision has been made and the idea was merely started in Ponte Vedra and NBC...either way, Sunday semi's followed by an 18-hole final match would be a wise switch for everyone involved.)

"In match play Sunday, it's a pairing sheet -- as in singular."

After reading Steve Elling's lament of the match play format and its impact on attendance, the SI guys suggestion of Sunday morning semi's followed by a Sunday afternoon final really is a great idea.

Last year, Woods played in the Accenture final against fellow Ryder Cupper Stewart Cink and the day drew an announced crowd of 7,500 fans. The tour's turnstile count for Sunday's Casey-Ogilvy tilt was 6,270. Setting aside the meaningless consolation match, for fans, it's essentially an all-or-nothing proposition on Sundays. There are only two players to watch over the course of an entire day, whereas a stroke-play format would have 70 or more guys to eyeball on the weekend.

In match play Sunday, it's a pairing sheet -- as in singular.

The 6,000 are clogged up, all walking on the same hole or two, making sightlines more challenging, too. Match play is a square peg on a round golf hole. That's probably why it's best left for quirky events like the Ryder and Presidents cups. Once a year is plenty.

Tiger's Match Play Win In Perspective

It's not easy to say anything fresh about Tiger's dominance, but a few columns managed to do it. Thanks to reader Clive for spotting this Iain Carter piece on Tiger's match play win, that includes two this tidbit that John Huggan noted a few weeks ago:

A couple of weeks ago we could say that the gap between Woods at the top of the rankings and Phil Mickelson in second place was greater than the margin between the number two and the guy ranked at 1000 in the world.

We can’t even do that now. Woods’ point average is 11.12 ahead of Mickelson, who has a rating of 10.12. This means ANY golfer registered on the rankings is closer to Mickelson than Lefty is to Tiger.

Finally, a decent use for the world ranking: quantifying Tiger's complete dominance.

And..

Bookmakers are offering a measly 12-1 for the calendar year Grand Slam of all four majors - 12-1 for something that’s never been done before!

Steve Elling offers some other stats:

In a span encompassing mid-1999 into late 2000, Woods won 17 of 30 (56.7 percent) of his official starts worldwide, a span where he also managed three seconds. That tallies to 20 of 30 (66.7 percent) events with either first or second as his final result. He was outside the top 10 four times and won four majors.

 In his current stretch, Woods has won 16 of his last 29 starts (55.2 percent) dating to his win at the 2006 British Open. He also has five runner-up finishes in that span. So, that's first or second in 21 of his last 29 starts (72.4 percent). He finished outside the top 10 four times and won three majors in that span.

The Boo Files: "I'm like, 'Pick it up?' Honestly, I didn't know"

Steve Elling on Boo Weekley apparently not understanding that you can give putts in match play. Here's the transcript if you don't believe him, or just take Elling's word for it:

Still country to the core, the pride of the rural Florida Panhandle showed up this week having not played in a match-play event as an amateur 12 years ago, which was somewhat embarrassingly reinforced on the first hole of his opening match on Tuesday.

Germany's Martin Kaymer lagged the ball to within a few inches of the hole, and Weekly didn't concede the putt. Several awkward moments passed.

"It wasn't probably eight or nine inches from the hole, and I'm sitting there and I'm putting my ball down, and he's looking at me and I'm looking at him, like, 'Are you going to tap it in?'" Weekley recalled with a laugh.

Weekley's caddie finally told Kaymer to pick it up.

"I'm like, 'Pick it up?' Honestly, I didn't know," Weekley said. "So that's how that started out."

Mark Lamport-Stokes also included this bit from Boo in his story:

"The man that was walking with us was like: 'I'm going to be walking with you today'. And I was like: 'Good, I can ask you if I have a problem?'

"This match play is different, very different," he said. "I kind of like that stroke play better myself."

John Garrity reports that Monty didn't understand the first tee Boos for Boo. Really!

Helen Ross previews Friday's matches, including Boo's head-to-head with Woody Austin. Now that should be fun! 

Nothing A Full Field Can't Fix

SI.com's golf.com's Gary Van Sickle is the latest to weigh in on the sad state of the World Golf Championship events. As it relates to the recent debate over the AT&T National, Van Sickle notes that the WGC's have often been plagued by run-away wins, something easily curable by larger fields:

In a full field, half a dozen players shoot lights-out every day. In a half-field, only two or three do. Golf leaderboards are exciting because they're bunched, and that's a function of the numbers. With a full field, it's going to be more like the Tour de France — no one usually breaks away from the pack without taking a half-dozen pursuers with him. In a half field, well, Tiger or Darren Clarke or someone else can break away from the field and win in a runaway.

The Gallery As A Match Play Venue

Catching up on my reading, I noticed John Hawkins' assessment of The Gallery in the latest Golf World:

The move to Tucson resulted in more than $1 million in ticket sales—attendance was limited to 17,000 per day—but The Gallery-South is an awful walking course, set on a rise of earth known as Dove Mountain and woefully short of decent sightlines. If you didn't have a camel and a pair of binoculars, you were basically out there for the exercise.

Invite The Women

Cameron Morfit says the match play is in need of a lift, so he recommends inviting the LPGA Tour to contest their own match play at the same time.

The Accenture is golf’s version of a tennis tournament: single-elimination, with most everything resting on the quality of the semifinal and final. One of the things tennis has going for it is that men and women play concurrently at the same venue. Right away you double your chances of having at least one star in a final, and of getting at least one compelling match in the prime viewing hours Saturday and Sunday.

Now I don't know about this next point, since I don't believe it's accurate. 

The LPGA, in fact, bettered the PGA Tour with its most recent match play event, the season-ending ADT Championship, won by Paraguayan pixie Julieta Granada, who pocketed $1 million, the largest purse in women’s golf, and promptly bought herself a new Range Rover. (A million bucks still means something on the LPGA.)

It was stroke play wasn't it?

Anyhow, the concept seems interesting since even with a great final match, the WGC Match Play is a dud on television. As much as I love match play, if it's going to be played only at real estate developments willing to pay for the privilege, then they need more, uh, "product" to distract us.

"What are we doing here?"

That's the question AP's Doug Ferguson asks while sitting in the press tent at The Gallery, home to the WGC Match Play.

What might help is taking this tournament to golf courses that could add some sizzle, and not just from the desert sun. The Gallery Golf Club is a nice piece of property, a blend of lush green and desert brown. But it still begs an important question.

What are we doing here?

No doubt the tournament will help sell homes on Dove Mountain. But it won't do the fans much good. The course goes out some 3 miles before making a U-turn, with only about four holes in the middle where fans can hop around and watch more than one match. The only way to get from No. 5 to No. 11 is to follow the routing, or dodge rattlesnakes traversing the desert.

At this point I will spare you my now annual rant that this event would be great at PGA West's Stadium Course because, well, the Golfobserver.com column I wrote about it has disappeared into cyberspace.
 

GolfDigest.com's Ron Whitten reviews The Gallery and, well, reminds us that the PGA Tour still has a long way to go when it comes to mixing architecture with commerce.

But people persist, because there's this theory that some courses make better match-play courses than stroke-play ones. If a course is fraught with obstacles and perils, or better yet, has lots of high-risk/high-reward gambling situations, so the theory goes, it's a terrific venue for match play but a humiliating place on which to keep score. That's a good, logical theory, but one that gets trampled upon by PGA Tour officials when they choose, and then set up, a course for their match-play event.

A prime example is The Gallery, on cactus-dotted slopes of Dove Mountain, a first-class private club with 36 holes that allows non-member play for those who stay overnight in one of its pricey but plush golf cottages. (See the club's website for details.) The Gallery's North Course, opened in 1998, was co-designed by former PGA Tour player John Fought and his then-design partner Tom Lehman and is known primarily for its deep-dish fairway bunkers and its 725-yard par-5 ninth. You would think the PGA Tour would eagerly award a match-play event to a course designed by two Tour players, particularly one with returning nines, 125 bunkers and ponds guarding two greens. But instead, The Accenture will be played on the South Course, five years younger and designed solely by Fought, without Lehman's influence.

Okay, here's the setup part.

But when I played the course last December, alternate fairways on the uphill par-5 10th and 362-yard 12th were both being grown to rough. They'll be taken out of play, converted to bleacher and/or skybox space. So much for match-play options.

What's more, the Tour will play The South in excess of the 7,351 yards listed as the maximum on the scorecard. Fought recently added four new back tees, so the course can now be stretched to 7,550 yards. Yes, it sits at an elevation of 3,000 feet, so it won't play that full distance, but why cater to ball-bashers in a match-play event? Why not set up the course to play around 6,900 yards and give underdogs like Corey Pavin a chance?

Sigh.

"Will you be designing environmentally-friendly golf courses in the future?"

Seems like a dumb question, right? Unfortunately that one was teed up for Tiger Woods and he uncharacteristicaly heel pulled it into the left rough.

But first, other highlights from his sitdown with the laptoppers in Tucson:

Q. I know you're concentrating on this week, but in the buildup to coming over here, I've read a lot in the media about the dialogue or lack of dialogue between you and the commissioner, about the schedule for this year. Can you tell us anything about that?

TIGER WOODS: I've talked to him quite a bit (smiling), so I don't know where that comes from.

Q. Well, there's been talk about given the new sort of format this year that -- is there a situation where you could maybe fall short of the minimum requirements of playing this year and maybe miss out on some of the climax to the FedExCup?

TIGER WOODS: I've just got to play 15 events, right? That's what I did last year.

Gee, what a ringing endorsement for the FedEx Cup and the PGA Tour!

Q. I don't know if you're reading the same stuff as me, but basically they were saying that there is a kind of atmosphere between you and the commissioner.

TIGER WOODS: We talk about once a week, so I don't know where that comes from. He's got my cell phone and we talk. It's funny, we just missed each other skiing. I have no idea where that's coming from.

How sweet, just missed each other on the slopes. Let's hope they don't run into each other.

Which reminds me, this slug for the Lakers Radmanovic slipped in Park City, separated his shoulder and already they're calls for a contract reading to see if he violated a clause by skiing (oh wait, he was in Park City for the great sidewalk shopping, forgive me).

As much as they are paying him, does Nike really let Tiger ski? Guess so. Anyway...

 Q. As a budding golf course architect, when you come to a new venue, come to a new community that has such a historic golfing tradition, do you approach it a little bit differently than when you were just playing, or have you always taken the mindset that, could I come here and design a golf course in place like that?

TIGER WOODS: It's interesting, since I started to get into that part of my life, every golf course I play, I look at the golf course differently now. Why would they construct that? Why would they build this? What were they thinking here? Trying to understand it instead of just plotting my way around the golf course. I do look at golf courses now, and it is kind of fun.

And...

 Q. In your design career and with a new baby on the way, where do you stand in terms of the environmental aspects of golf, and where will you be designing environmentally-friendly golf courses in the future?

TIGER WOODS: That's the whole idea. That's the challenge of it. As an architect, that's what your responsibility is to do, to also provide a wonderful playing environment. That's a task that I think is going to be -- that's been at the forefront for all architects for decades.

Uh, Tiger, they mean are you going to build a wetlands at Al Jambajuicia to mitigate the puddle that you are bulldozing over. Your architecture buddy,
Geoff

Howell and Elk On WGC's

Andrew Both in the Telegraph:

European Tour Order of Merit leader David Howell has joined the growing chorus of condemnation over the Americanisation of the World Golf Championships."There should be at least one event every year somewhere other than America.

And...

"Obviously, the market is huge here but it is a world game and any opportunity to get the best players to other parts of the world is a great way to grow golf. I'm sure lots of corporate sponsors in America would be happy to see a tournament in China, but we're not having one for some reason."

Howell's comments, strong though they were, paled beside the amazing outburst by Steve Elkington, the Houston-based Australian who beat Colin Montgomerie in a play-off at the 1995 US PGA Championship, but who missed the cut here.

"They're not really world events any more. It's just a fancy name for a $10 million event," Elkington said in a blistering attack on the US Tour, who decide when and where WGC events will be played.

"They're killing world golf everywhere else. Next year we're going to be playing the Match Play in Tucson, Arizona. I mean, who's ever been to Tucson?"

Moving For The Gallery

The Arizona Daily Star has all sorts of interesting information regarding the WGC Match Play's move to Tucson.

Charles Durrenberger writes:

The competition for the foreseeable future will be staged at The Gallery's South Course, where expansive fairways will be shaved down to 25 yards wide, providing ample spectator avenues.

"Fans will not be walking through the desert, except between holes, and we will have wide expanses for that," said Gallery head golf professional Paul Nolen. "The Tour has not requested us to do anything special to the golf course."

No, just cut the fairway widths in half. They don't matter anyway! Shoot, take 'em to 15 yards so the fans can be part of the action...sell hard hats, have paramedics on hand. I still say the 18-34 year olds will love it.

That is primarily due to a temporary situation. Ground is to be broken in August on the Nicklaus course.

The Gallery Golf Club's 36-hole layout is at 14000 N. Dove Mountain Blvd., two miles north of Tangerine Road, roughly 23 miles northwest of Tucson's city center and at the base of the Tortolita Mountains.

Parking is planned at lots near Tangerine Road and Dove Mountain Boulevard, with shuttle service to the course. Intense traffic is anticipated.

Hey, they should see Sunset Boulevard on when school lets out on Valentine's Day. Bet it doesn't take 2 hours to go 3 miles!

And thanks to reader John for this Greg Hanson column:

The Gallery is expected to pay something in the $500,000 to $750,000 range to play host to the Match Play Championships. The typical PGA Tour host fee is 37 percent of the purse (or about $3 million in this case). How's that for a discount? When the Match Play purse rises to $8 million next year, the Tour and Accenture will pay almost all of it. 

Giving back is the heart of the PGA Tour!

The attendant exposure should launch the Gallery into the stratosphere of elite-level golf facilities.

Yes, it did so much for La Costa. The Tour couldn't get out of town fast enough.

The Conquistadores will be given the entire ticket inventory. They will distribute all tickets and keep all the profit for their charities, the First Tee program and their foundation. More important, they will be able to retain their identity with pro golf. 

They no longer will operate the tournament, but their charitable profits are expected to increase. Crazy. 

Hey, they deserve it.

The Dove Mountain development, part of Tucsonan Dave Mehl's tony 6,200-acre property, will become Southern Arizona's Scottsdale, a community that will next include a Jack Nicklaus-designed course scheduled to play host to the Match Play event beginning in 2009. 

They'll need at least 10 more Nicklaus courses to catch up with Scottsdale. And preferably all of them at one development.

"We expect to break ground perhaps in August," said Mehl, who has twice met with Nicklaus at the Gallery in recent months. 

What is with the Tour and the love affair with unfinished Nicklaus courses?

Accenture, which posted a 2005 net profit of $15.5 billion and has more than 125,000 employees worldwide, uses the WGC event as a corporate celebration.

Yep, at $15.5 billion in profit, an $8 million purse is no big deal.
 

It's All About Capacity...

Who says there's no Christmas in February?

After Commissioner Tim Finchem thanked more people than an Oscar winner, he took a few questions from the assembled scribblers:

Q. The commitment to Tucson, how long is that for, is that through the sponsorship? 2010?

COMMISSIONER TIM FINCHEM: Virtually all our agreements are linked to our cycles, a sponsorship cycle and television cycle. All of our agreements dovetail; in this instance they dovetail in four years.

Judge, can you direct the witness to answer yes or no. 

Q. The other part, do you think the World Golf Championships are meeting the stated aim of developing developed to enhance the competitive structure of World Golf worldwide?

COMMISSIONER TIM FINCHEM: Yes, I think the first and primary reason for the World Golf Championships was to create a vehicle whereby the fans could enjoy the opportunity to watch all of the best players in the world assembled, a more frequent number of times during the course of the year. Heretofore, that was primarily the major championships and THE PLAYERS Championship.

Heretofore? Mr. Commissioner, we're not dictating a memo to Candace. You are talking to people. Well, members of the media. Please, continue...

Today we have, with the World Golf Championships, another group of tournaments where all the best players in the world play. There are others, as well, but as a constant flow with Ryder Cup and Presidents Cup competition included in that. And that was the primary mission.

The secondary mission was to continue to grow interest in the game by focusing on the International and global aspects of the game. And that's why we've had such a great relationship with a company like Accenture, because they have a global focus. And I think that secondary mission is being met, as well.

See, Accenture has a global focus, so the events have had a worldly flavor! That answers the question, right?

Nope, it's about to get awwwwkwaaaarrrd.

Q. I think 39 of the 64 players in this week's field come from overseas. Can you part one of my question, can you explain why so many of these championships are played in the United States? And part two is don't you think that you have a responsibility to take these tournaments elsewhere in the world and to grow interest in the game elsewhere in the world?

COMMISSIONER TIM FINCHEM: Where the players come from is frankly not of too much import. Our system is such that from the start of the system...

Q. I'm trying to point out that it's a global game, golf is a global game.

COMMISSIONER TIM FINCHEM: I understand that. I'm remarking that I had questions during the course of the week, and they're disturbed that over half of the field is not from the United States.

Q. That was not my question.

COMMISSIONER TIM FINCHEM: I understand that. To the second part of your question, yes and no. We would like to see World Golf Championships played around the world, and we have seen that the first eight years. I think we've played on five different continents. Today the World Cup continues to be played this past year in Portugal, and this coming year in Barbados as part of the World Golf Championships. We may add another World Golf Championship. That is a nice thing to do.

That is a nice thing to do? Uh, let's back to the MBAspeak...

I think the fundamental, however, is not that. The fundamental is to bring to the world via incredible television capability, to 145 countries, all the best players in the world playing. The reality is that frankly Sergio Garcia is seen who is not here, is seen when he's played in a World Golf Championship by more people than typically any other event he plays, regardless of where it is, whether in Europe or Asia or anywhere else.

See, it doesn't matter where you play. It's about the television capacity. This is why they should just build one golf course in Orlando with stadium seating and a big parking lot. Construct a 6,000 foot runway (for the G5s, of course), some player housing, and just play all of the events in one place. You can maximize margins and just let that television capacity do its thing! 

Ernie Els gets more global television exposure when he plays here this week than he does when he plays in China or Hong Kong.

Imagine if he won a match how much capacity he would have maximized!

But I think the important thing is not that, it's that who are we reaching through World Golf Championships, are we reaching just as many people, and we think the answer is absolutely. Not to say we won't continue to work with having tournaments around the world. We are proud of the fact that we play on five different continents, and we will continue to play somewhere around the world, as well.

I think he meant the past tense there, "played on five different continents." But hey, we're going to throw an event to China so we'll still be playing around the world. Quit your complaining!

And now it's time for the Commissioner's intermission so the Accenture suit can out-MBA the Commish (the audacity!):

Q. Mr. Murphy, was Australia that much of a failure for you when it was played down there? If you were to continue your relationship with this World Golf Championship, would there be any scenario in which you'd be willing for one year to take this tournament abroad?

JIM MURPHY: The Australian tournament in many ways was a huge success for us, because we relaunched our new brand from that place. And Australia happened to be the major continent in the world where our brand was new, because in the time zones that's how it worked out. We changed our name from an older name to what we have now on midnight that day, and we played that week.

Ah those fond memories of the brand relaunch. Amazing how these WGC's just warm the heart.

But it's not all about relaunching the brand for Mr. Murphy...

From a timing point of view, it worked out great. We were somewhat disappointed in the field; some of the top players didn't come. The television coverage was great, we had great client entertainment there, and we saw it as a plus.

Would we do it again? Well, we'd consider it. Certainly we'd talk to the PGA TOUR about it. The PGA TOUR and other Tours drive this process, and we're sort of in a reactionary mode.

A reactionary mode? Scribblers, was Finchem making a note of that one? That's a peach, hon!

We can influence what happens, but they're the experts on golf, and we're experts in managing and selling technology services. We recognize our roles.

Oh, nice, subtle plug. I was wondering what the heck Accenture does.

Okay, enough of him. Back to the Commissioner...

Q. Based upon your knowledge of The Gallery, what were your impressions of the course specifically, and anything you feel The Gallery needs to do to be fully prepared for that event next year?

COMMISSIONER TIM FINCHEM: We've been engaged for months, and our team has, with everyone related to The Gallery, many of whom are here today. We have a good, solid working relationship on the short term and long term planning that will relate to the conduct of the Accenture Match Play in Tucson. There are, obviously, in any instances like this, a lot of things that need to be done. We're very, very comfortable with the working relationship we have.

Uh, that's a no, he hasn't seen the course.

Q. What's your feel for the State of golf worldwide at this time, is it growing or is it receding, both in terms of the PGA and in terms of..

COMMISSIONER TIM FINCHEM: I gather the question is what is my perception of the state of the game in terms of its growth globally; is that correct? Well, that's an interesting question, because it's an interesting question, the answer of which has been perhaps many times in the media misanalyzed to some extent.

Pausing here to allow you to go back and read that one more time. After all, it's an interesting answer to an interesting answer.

And by that I mean here in the United States, for example, there is a focus on the total number of rounds played as it relates to golf courses. And in today's society the regular golfer is playing a few rounds less than perhaps he played he or she played five or ten years ago.

On the other hand, there's been each and every year an increase in the number of participants in the game. So from a total participant standpoint we've seen regular growth here in the United States.

More people playing less. At least he's honest about it. 

Q. I realize it's not done yet, Commissioner, on the FedEx Cup points, but where do you see the World Golf Championships positioned with that series going on next year?

COMMISSIONER TIM FINCHEM: It would be premature for me to say. We're evaluating different processes. It will be a process that goes to June. But whether or not it's a process that relates to strength of field or a process that relates to purse or a process that relates to stature of events, under any of those scenarios World Golf Championships will fare well, and fare well in that configuration.

And it's a process that we'll be processing for quite some time since no one can really process how this FedEx Cup process is going to be processed.

Some Consolation

Winner Geoff Ogilvy talked about the pace of play during Sunday's WGC final:

Q: Did the pace bother you, the fact that you guys waited quite a bit?

Geoff Ogilvy: It was quite slow; we waited for most of it, yeah.

Q: What did you say to Mark walking up 10 fairway?

Geoff Ogilvy: I just asked him why they weren't like 15 minutes in front of us in the tee time and not five or ten minutes, just to have a bit of a separation. I know all the TV and all the volunteers and everything want to be on one spot on the golf course, which makes sense. But they could have made it a hole in between us. Me and Davis play quite fast; we probably would have caught them anyway. No big deal. I've never been one of four people on a golf course and waiting (laughter).

Q: What did he say?

Geoff Ogilvy: Who?

Q: Mark Russell.

Geoff Ogilvy: It was because of all the infrastructure and everything needs to be all in one spot. It's a bit of a mess if it's all spread out. And it makes sense.

It was just we played quite fast. We obviously played just a hair faster. It wasn't relentless waiting, but it was enough to be waiting. We were obviously playing each hole faster than the other two guys and we were catching them every hole.

Q: They could have put them off 25 minutes early and it wouldn't make any difference.

Geoff Ogilvy: I would think so. But we may have caught them anyway after four holes. If we have a couple of good holes we might catch them anyway, and you've got volunteers and cameras spread out over three holes, and that may not be what they wanted.

Q: Did you want to play through?

Geoff Ogilvy: We asked the question.

Q: Did you ask?

Geoff Ogilvy: We asked the question on the 8th. Because I was messing around and Zach had done something in the water, I don't know what he did, it looked like he was playing a left handed shot and it went and there was all sorts of they stood around for five minutes, and actually Davis asked the question, hey, Mark, can we go, can we just go in front of them? Because we shouldn't be waiting.

It was fine. We still probably played 16 holes in three and a half hours, so it wasn't bad.

Boring Course=Boring Match?

Geoff OgilvySunday's Geoff Ogilvy-Davis Love match was not exactly a heart stopping thrill-ride to culminate the WGC's run at La Costa.

The ABC announce team implied that the play was lackluster at times, but that seems unfair to Ogilvy and Love.

The real fault for another less-than-exciting match play goes to La Costa's insipid design.

Since I'm apparently the only one that thinks the stymie would have livened up today's match (and maybe more replays of Tom Lehman getting into a sword fight with his bag), consider how the architecture failed to offer chances for daring play.

Other than the short par-4 6th (which technology helped turn into risk-reward short par-4), the design offered few tough decisions that might create dramatic turning points. There are were even fewer "scary" shots that might put the player in an uncomfortable position (and leading to more tough decision-making scenarios or hope for the player who was down in the match).

In fact, the inconsistent rough provided the only real "danger," and we know how interesting rough is as a hazard. 

In general, the design rewards a conservative style of play, and Ogilvy handled it beautifully. Watching him play last week at Riviera, the combination of his steady ball striking, solid putting and easy-going demeanor made him an ideal uh, match for La Costa.

Last year I had suggested in this Golfobserver.com column why La Costa is a dud for match play and why PGA West-Stadium would be far more compelling.

But as we learned today to end golf's worst kept secret, the WGC Match Play moves to Tucson's The Gallery at Dove Mountain, home to a 725-yard par-5. Excited?

Fans of match play can only hope for the sake of the format that the Fought-Lehman design will elicit a few more decisions and uncomfortable shots that can make match play so fun to watch.