PGA Tour: WGC Accenture MatchPlay: Notes from the Ballwasher

First topic message reminder :

1).All set for Tim Finchem's annual international get-together in the desert as we travel east from one of the most revered courses on the PGA Tour to one rated by PGA Tour pros as amongst the very worst on Tour. But the action should be compelling, Tiger plays with Chuckie, Rory plays with Shane, truly "Jeux Sans Frontieres".

2).But before we say, "Hello, Dove Mountain," we should offer a very fond au revoir to Riviera which looked at its absolute Major-worthy very best last week for the "Northern Trust Open", won eventually by John Merrick - and who'd've thunk it? Such a fantastic leaderboard and the two to come out on top were the two least heralded of the lot.
Until now, Merrick seemed to be the archetypal Tour journeyman, making the FedEx play-offs in each of the past six years, with an annual trip to the top of a leaderboard (two runner-ups), but never a winner. Now he's off to Augusta (where he finished 6th on his first visit), has a ticket to the stroke-play WGC's and may even reach the US Open (where he's also finished 6th).

We pointed out the inherent advantage that California boys had for the three coastal California events and John Merrick, from nearby Long Beach, joins Tiger as winners this year. Sure Snedeker won at Pebble Beach, but two lesser-known Californians, Hahn and Stadler crowded on to the podium.

3).And then there's Charlie Beljan. Most Tour pros play further right than Theo Walcott but Beljan is something else:
"Praying that Paul Ryan and Romney can beat the biggest D Bag this country has ever seen," he elegantly tweeted last August.
He then likened President Obama to the bad person issues at Penn State University and his uncomplimentary observations following last November's election preceded the deletion of his Twitter account.
Ironically, he was then carted away from the Disney tournament by health care workers and stuffed in to an ambulance destined for hospital where he overnighted - presumably partly Government services that his ideal world would abolish.
He was at it again in the press room on Sunday with his description of the highly regarded 10th hole:
"I really don't have anything good to say about the 10th hole." "It's a tough hole to have a play-off on. We might as well go and put a windmill out there," before going on to say they should blow it up.
Pity he's not in the Match Play, "Adolf plays with Beljan . . . ."

4).In fairness, the green on Riviera's 10th might be getting a little severe but there were still eagles to be had and birdies a-plenty. Azinger mentioned that, when he played the 10th as his first hole, before he felt properly warmed up, he'd lay up; when he played it as his 10th hole, he'd go for the green.
Great tournament regardless, a loss that Bill Haas will have nightmares about, and an opportunity for all the Europeans except Freddie Jac to flatter only to disappointingly deceive. Ironic that the Swedish Seve should miss a 4-footer for a play-off berth.

5).Let's keep an eye on Ross Fisher this season. He secured his "playing privileges" via an excellent Q-School result and has four tournaments under his belt: 56th, 21st, cut, and now 38th at Riviera.
He led the Northern Trust in greens in regulation so 38th was a disappointing result. He gets this week off, will presumably then play Honda, Puerto Rico, Tampa, week off for Bay Hill, and perhaps Houston and San Antonio before The Masters. If the pgatour.com web-site ever returns to normal, we'll know for sure where he stands on the "reshuffle" as the Tour heads east, but he's probably lost about six or eight places, to perhaps 12th. Just guessing.

6).Dustin Johnson dominated the field at Kapalua but since he embarked on his synchronised gymnastics with Paulina Gretzky his sequence of finshes is: withdrawn (you couldn't make it up, could you), 51st, cut, cut. T33 is the worst he can do this week unless he withdraws again or gets dq'd for unsportsmanlike conduct.

7).The weather forecast for Round One of the Match Play is dismal, cold (forties), strong winds and the likelihood of rain. Or perhaps snow. Wind gusts today could reach 40 mph.
Conditions Wednesday are likely to be worst early so Rory and Tiger might benefit from later tee-times (12.05 p.m. & 12.25 p.m. local) as they get to renew friendly rivalries with Lowry and CHIII - Woods and Howell first met in the 1996 US Amateur when Chuckie was a mere yute of 17, but subsequently became near-ish neighbours at Isleworth.

8).No idea of who might fare well this week beyond the obvious - Luuuuke, South Africa - but some of the guys have previous, for better or for worse:
Most wins:
Woods: 33
Toms: 24
Poults: 18
Lukey: 16
Scott: 14
Those with more losses than wins include:
Westwood: 14
Els: 12
Furyk: 12
while Harrington has 11 wins to go with 11 losses.

9).Bernhard Langer continues to add to his Champions Tour fortune although his march to victory in Florida last Sunday wasn't without the occasional self-inflicted mishap. Since turning 50 in 2007, Bernhard has now won 17 times, more than any player reaching the Champo Tour since 1998. He's 14th on the list of all-time wins behind Irwin, Trevino, Gil Morgan, Barber, Charles and January, Rodriguez, Colbert and Crampton, Larry Nelson and Player, Fleisher and Mike Hill. Pretty good company considering the greatly reduced number of events now compared to the heyday of the Tour in the 80's and 90's.

10).Weather permitting, the first round of the "WGC Accenture Match Play" is as exciting/fascinating as any day of the golfing year, at least outside the Majors and Ryder Cup. TV coverage should be comprehensive starting at 5.00 p.m. GMT on Wednesday. Games without frontiers, war without tears.

Kwini, just checking: did they move the match play to hawaii or should "west" have read "east" in your write up?

As for the winners this week: I'd bet Luke 10 bucks, Bubba 5, Tiger 2 and pennies on Schwartzel!

mighty,
You know, I check and I edit (believe it or not) but I still come up with a weekly blunder! I'll change that, Thanks.

Sun doesn't set until 6.15 in AZ so hope we'll see some play before too long - five matches very close to the end so getting rid of them should speed things up a bit.

Come on guys, get out there!

Does anyone know of a better website than the official one to check the scores and which hole they're playing?

The official one is gash.

http://www.golfchannel.com/tours/wgc/2013/wgc-accenture-match-play-championship/

This is better, but certainly not good.

Thanks mate, that'll do perfectly.

Might even click on an advert or two just to let them know I've "visited"!

Play suspended for the day. Surprised given the amount of daylight left but perhaps Tiger was on the blower to Finchem to say that his web site's crap and he ain't playin' golf in no snow.

Regardless, they've got a pickle on their hands now if the weather's not warm enough to clear some snow tonight - it'll be parky overnight and potentially frosty in the a.m.

So they'll be completing Round 2 on Friday I'd imagine.

just saw a picture on sky sports. it does look ridiculous can see why they have called it off. is thus a first for the event?

Plenty of golfers area happy to be playing day two ... but not this way!

Thirteen years ago the Champions Tour Major "The Tradition" was reduced to 36 holes due to snow.
Think it was slightly closer to Phoenix, but a couple of weeks later.

Not sure how they'll schedule Thursday, especially if they can't get on the course first thing.
It could be that they finish Round 1 on Thursday.
Play Round 2 on Friday.
Play Rounds 3 & 4 on Saturday.
Semi-final and Final on Sunday.
Sure they don't want to play Monday, especially with a cross-country trip ahead.

Two ex pompey players making things a little awkward for barca.

Mac,
I love that! Plus another one scored for Leeds but, given the way Leeds scarfed up players from the Pompey scrapheap at bargain basement prices, that's hardly surprising; (two started tonight, with three more on the bench - and Blackpool were a couple of weeks away from having our ex-manager).


Action in the desert resumes at 8.30 a.m. local time tomorrow, but it must be even money whether they'll be starting on time. Sergio could be finito with one putt - but we've heard that before.

Any idea when coverage will start tomorrow on Sky will it be moved forward an hour or two now!?

Hi benson,
Not sure how this translates but it looks like Golf Channel coverage here begins at 1.00 p.m., 6.00 p.m. your time, possibly earlier. You know they'll want to show as much Woods and McIlroy as possible, so cutting in early in their round is entirely probable.
Keep an eye open on Sky!

As of midnight GMT, Frank Nobilo was tweeting that snow is falling again, so an on-time start (8.30 a.m. local - seven hour time difference) may be a pipedream.

Lets see. 2013 PGATour Season

Wind Delays Check (Hyundai)
Fog Delays Check (Farmers)
Frost Delays Check (Waste Management)
Snow Delays Check (Accenture Match Play)

But I do not remember any rain delays yet.

Drug Cheat Decision Delay Check (Vijay)

IS there any reason why they cant just play with yellow balls? You might have to keep the fans out but I have never seen a winter league match stopped for some snow.

McLaren wrote:IS there any reason why they cant just play with yellow balls? You might have to keep the fans out but I have never seen a winter league match stopped for some snow.

Switching golf balls to yellow ones violates the one ball rule.

Entire course is casual water?

Greens would be damaged by stepping on them

the season starts in my eyes when this event comes around!

Good write of Kwini

Poulter was a bit ill last year.. but he looks fighting fit. Its all about IJP!!

Mac,
Not sure why the Tour could be criticised for suspending play when the greens are snow-covered and some ice is (allegedly) forming from some freezing rain.

The good news is that the "weather" has high-tailed it outathere. The bad news is that the temps are in the low 30's - at the course it could well be below freezing. Not only would that be unplayable, it would also delay snow clearance. Comparitively little wind though and a sunny day forecast, but from the superficial info available I'd bet against an on-time, 8.30 a.m., resumption.


mysti,
IJP looked all business on the holes that we could see him play yesterday - plus, he'll be able to get out and finish off his match with Gallacher and take much of the rest of the day off, altho' up-comoing opponent Van Pelt will be able to do exactly the same thing.

Martin Kaymer looking fashionable in the snow as usual!

GPB,
We could have all those reasons for suspension of play just at Dove Mountain. Now there's a fog alert in the area, though not necessarily at the course!

Lots of media second-guessing as to the appropriateness of a remote Arizona location for this WGC. Not sure what the answer is, but I DO know they replaced a perfectly fine PGA Tour event to hold this tournament.

Regardless, these are days most golf fans look forward to with more anticipation than most others and so far the entertainment is being denied us.

Wonder whether anyone's working the pgatour.com website and live scoring today? Wouldn't bet on it - what a shambles.

Edit: web.com leaderboard looks to be working just fine!

Right,
You wouldn't know it from pgatour.com but resumption of play has now been delayed by one hour, to 9.30 a.m. local, 4.30 p.m. GMT.

Bloody good job you're around Kwini!

Get yerself in for Finchem's job or at least get a job on the pga website updating the damn thing!

Kwini,
I assume the web.com takes precedence over the Tucson desert. Why follow the best of today if we could spend our time following the best of tomorrow?

Roller,
To be fair, it looks like they posted the delay just after I did - probably also from Poulter's twitter account!
Doesn't do anything to warm things up though - still in the low thirties at the course. 9.30 a.m. very optimistic. But things will warm into the 40's by 10.00 a.m. so perhaps nature can lend a hand.

mighty, The "best of tomorrow" might be about right as far as the Tour is concerned, Cantlay, Lovemark, Saunders all there - pity none of them could get through Q-School though!
Plus the well-known European Tour guys Beem, Hamilton and Micheel are hanging their hats on a successful trip to Panama.

kwinigolfer wrote:GPB,
We could have all those reasons for suspension of play just at Dove Mountain. Now there's a fog alert in the area, though not necessarily at the course!

Lots of media second-guessing as to the appropriateness of a remote Arizona location for this WGC. Not sure what the answer is, but I DO know they replaced a perfectly fine PGA Tour event to hold this tournament.

Regardless, these are days most golf fans look forward to with more anticipation than most others and so far the entertainment is being denied us.

Wonder whether anyone's working the pgatour.com website and live scoring today? Wouldn't bet on it - what a shambles.

Edit: web.com leaderboard looks to be working just fine!

Are you referring to the link to the "Leaderboard" on the WGC/Accenture site ??..............It is truly awful. At least this morning, they put down how many holes they had played.

Why on earth has the PGA Tour site got considerably worse....It has annoyed me all season.

Other things Pgatour.com does not provide..............the purse for each event, the amount of world ranking points available, what "THE CUT" is or whether an MDF is in play or not.....and what an MDF is.................the "play by play" is hopeless,it keeps saying "calculating distance" this year.........

Our friend "robopz" told us the reason a month or so ago - can't remember the details but something to do, I think, with changing the contractor who runs the site.
Regardless, it's pathetic and primitive right now, all the statistical data has disappeared, loads of the players' bio info has gone, the leaderboard (live scoring and shotlink) stuff is paralysed and it's no longer a reliable source of information.

Very much regretted when (can't remember the exact name but perhaps?) golfweb was acquired or merged with pgatour.com. Felt golf info had lost its independence amidst all the Tour propaganda and relentless jingoistic tendancies, but the past couple of years it's been quite good - at least as a reliable source of info and up-to-date scoring.

No longer though - other sites are now better for the type of info we used to depend on pgatour.com for.

I just use thegolfchannel.com scoreboards. You can pretty much follow all the events there (PGA, LPGA, euro etc). Handy if you're in the office as it's only one site to keep an eye on. You can keep it lurking behind your excel spreadsheet and flip to it once in a while (only if not too busy of course !)

Another delay to 10.30AM (17.30PM GMT), but saw a tweet from Butch Harmon saying he doesn't think it'll start till noon over there...

Screaming Lord Butch!
He's right-ish. Now 11.30 a.m.

Dismal start for Peter Lonard in Panama - must be one of the more precipitous golf declines.
Wonder why he keeps on playing? Must be losing a fortune.

silly weather

1:30 PM now ... that's some weather event they had!

1.30 ET, 11.30 MT.

Sr,
But it WAS forecast!

Wouldn't it be nice if Corporate Australia and South Africa bellied up to the bar and staged this in the appropriate hemisphere to start the season?

Hibbz wrote:Does anyone know of a better website than the official one to check the scores and which hole they're playing?

The official one is gash.

Try the www.golfdigest.com website. Their scoreboard was a lot better than any of the others that I saw.

Kwin - They would never agree to the rules --- live only during US prime time weekends, etc. Also, likely dead in the water (or desert) as far as local corporate promotions. It all starts with the advertisers!

I kind of like this later start, more after work viewing opportunities.

So, Butch was right after all... Noon it is. (for now)

best thing about US golf for us europeans??

the timing is usually perfect!

Sr,
That's why I added the caveat of Corporate SA and Australia.

If prime time TV in the USA is the sole criteria for the WGC's, and doubtless it is, then what's the point? GC's only and let's stop pretending.

As Shackleford so rightly says:
" . . . . you have to understand the PGA Tour has many very strict parameters so it is played at a quality(sic) course. They start with what Accenture wants, then moves to what Accenture needs and, finally, what Accenture wants must also be taken into consideration. Anyone know what Accenture wants?" !!

He votes for PGA West and that would be fine in my book, they could orchestrate a Cal coastal swing, then a desert swing.



pd, Screaming Lord Butch would have been a better Parliamentary candidate than Sutch. Think I'll go and watch Tottenham.
Anyway, a back story is that this is the final year of the Dove Mountain contract apparently.

Shotgun start at 3 bells. About time too.

Miserable day for guys like Senden, Zacher, Thongchai, even perhaps Gallacher who may only have a few minutes of action before packing their bags and checking out!

Harrington and McDowell on the first - could be quite the match.

Wonder what pgatour.com has in store for us - live leaderboard working perfectly from the Panama web.commer, hope they can get their act together in Arizona.

Sergio

pgatour.com leaderboard stuck again . . . . . . .

Oliver Wilson is a dire golfing pundit.

He'd fit right in over here . . . . . .

Come on Charl . . . . . . . please

Big upset: Joe Allen scored.

Russell Knox in birdie heaven in Panama.

Sergio!!!!! (eventually)

Noren doing a job on Dustin, that Kapalua win seems to have broken him.

NedB-H wrote:Noren doing a job on Dustin, that Kapalua win seems to have broken him.

Just noted that the anagram of 'kapalua win' is 'wak paulina'...

Sheeze van pelt won 8?and 6.. Poulter will get in his head though ..

wak paulina?
What a lovely thought - not now though.

Talk about being wak-ed - First time I've seen Kelly Tilghman this year. The years, or the vino, or getting wak-ed seem to have caught up with her.

Westwood wobbling a bit - why can't he make things easy on himself?

Kaymer hitting some pretty sweet shots. Would that he wins this week.