Match Play Super Wednesday Wrap Up
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I'm a stunning 2,945th in the Golfweek bracket with my projected winner freed up to prepare for his next club toss. Still, Golfweek's design remains great fun and a real work of art to interact with, especially compared to the size 7 font official bracket at PGATour.com.
Doug Ferguson with the toughest game story of the year to write. Thankfully he had a morning free of news and distractions to get in his writing zone!
Ryan Ballengee with day one capsules so you can look for reasons your bracket went bad.
Steve Elling on World No. 1 Luke Donald's early departure.
"I don't think it would have mattered who I played today," said Donald, the top-seeded player in the field and the current world No. 1. "I just didn't play well."
It was interesting to hear the XM/Sirius team keep bringing up Donald's equipment changes, something Rex Hoggard noted last month.
As for Tiger's win, Jim Moriarty writes:
Hey, getting dusted by Phil Mickelson at Pebble Beach is one thing but losing to a guy, Gonzalo Fernandez-Castano, who sounds like he ought to be back-up baritone in the Barber of Seville, is quite another, even if the shave and haircut were about to be delivered by someone who was the European Tour rookie of the year in '05, an ancient time when Tiger Woods was winning a green jacket and a claret jug to boot. So, he didn't.
Remember all the thrust-and-parry from the twosome before the match, about whether the other was "beatable." Turns out they were both right. If they had played nearly any other guy, they might have been tied to a Saguero and left as buzzard bait.
Both players would have posted 1-over 73s, and they mustered a combined two birdies on a back nine that was memorable for all the wrong reasons. Sure, it started entertainingly enough, sort of like watching insults being traded on a Married ... With Children rerun.
You know it was partly the cold he caught, the hacking cough told you as much, but it was mostly the bad golf, a disappointing day of ball striking and balky putting. Woods spent too much time hiking through the desert to enjoy this victory, too much time squeezing past scrub brush and cacti looking for golf balls. Woods played shots from places a rattlesnake wouldn’t feel comfortable, but he survived, which is pretty much the best you can say about his first-round performance.
It was classic Woods, the 2012 version, not the imperious 2000 model. One second he was zooming along nicely, the next he was careering into the desert. One second he was holing putts, the next he was hitting them left, right and anywhere but center. He even played left-handed with his backside against a bush. Luckily for him he had landed next to one of the friendly ones, not a prickly cactus that can do more than puncture a golfer's confidence.
Jim McCabe on Ryo Ishikawa's stunning comeback against Bill Haas and the cheers from his rooting section who also happened to be wearing Media badges.
Gary Van Sickle makes his day 2 picks and offers his usual to-the-point analysis.
Alex Myers has a primer for day two, with the most anticipated matches and other notes.
Jim McCabe makes his predictions for day two, with thoughts and things to look for.
A longer than normal PGA Tour YouTube highlight package:
