The Volvo World Matcplay

The tournaments inception was the idea of Mark McCormack to showcase his stable of players, and the first event was won by Arnold Palmer in 1964. A tournament that thrived for years over the West Course at Wentworth, but was initially hit hard in 1999 with the introduction of the 64 man field WGC matchplay has led to this event being re-jigged in the way it's played.

It used to be the 4 major winners would be seeded and not play until the 2nd round of the event now we have an event that has moved on from the shores of this green and pleasant land from a course we all knew that could throw up birdies and eagles down the stretch and so knew that a slender lead wasn't enough to the shores of Casares Andalucia, Spain. To a warmer climate and totally different time of year, it was always a post season event and marked the end of the ET season, now this event is a regular placed ET event as a prelude to the PGA at Wentworth...

The history remains strong, in the event the list of winners if one to match any engraved major trophy itself. We have Major winners a plenty in this event, none more so than record 7 time winner Ernie Els, the names of Seve, Faldo, Nicklaus, Player and Palmer all sit inthe history of winners of this event. An event that over recent years has seen many different sponsors, Current world No1 Lee Westwood a winner of this in recent years heads the field, the event was not played in 2008 due to lack of sponsor but returned to Volvo and now we have Ross Fisher as defending champion.

The event is no longer a straight forward knockout but begins in champions league style group phases, 8 groups of 3 players, with the top 2 progressing to the knockout stage of the event.

So whos in the vent and what groups are they in.

Group A: Anders Hanson, Aaron Baddeley, Lee Westwood
Group B: Ryan Moore, Luke Donald, Ross Fisher
Group C:Martin Kaymer, Seung-Yul Noh, Y E Yang
Group D: Jhonatton Vegas, Louis Oosthuizen, Graeme McDowell
Group E: Nicolas Colsaerts, Retief Goosen, Rory McIlroy
Group F: Soren Kjeldsen, Alvaro Quiros, Paul Casey
Group G: Charl Schwartzel, Migeul Angel Jimenez, Johan Edfors
Group H: Paul Lawrie, Francesco Molinari, Ian Poulter.

With Luke Donalds form this year and in matchplay in general, WGC winner, Ryder Cup and Walker Cup exceptional how can the bookies realistically have LW as favourite ahead of him. Who will win, well i'll let you pick your own winners but looks to be a good couple of weeks with this event and the PGA next week

The first matches of the group stage of the tournament will be

Francesco MOLINARI 12:05 Ian POULTER
Charl SCHWARTZEL 12:20 Miguel Angel JIMÉNEZ
Paul CASEY 12:35 Alvaro QUIROS
Rory MCILROY 12:50 Retief GOOSEN
Graeme MCDOWELL 13:05 Louis OOSTHUIZEN
Martin KAYMER 13:20 Y. E. YANG
Luke DONALD 13:35 Ryan MOORE
Lee WESTWOOD 13:50 Anders HANSEN

Excellent start by FM Poults already 2 down.

Some really poor shots in the last hour, only Senor Jiminez has looked impressive... he thumped Charl Schwartzel 6&5 who was 3 over.

First round of group game results:

MA Jimenez (Spa) beat C Schwartzel (SA) 6&5

A Quiros (Spa) beat P Casey (Eng) 3&1

R McIlroy (NI) beat R Goosen (SA) 1 up

G McDowell beat L Oosthuizen (SA) 3&1

M Kaymer (Ger) beat YE Yang (Kor) 2&1

L Donald (Eng) beat R Moore (US) 4&3

L Westwood (Eng) beat A Hansen (Den) 6&5

F Molinari (Ita) halved with I Poulter (Eng)

What a win for Miguel. Home advantage may well take him a long way this week, IMHO.

Wish I'd had a little punt on some of those matches. Wouldn't have picked a halved match for Frannie/Poults and not sure I'd have had Quiros beating Casey - but the rest seemed to go to my idea of a form book

http://www.europeantour.com/europeantour/season=2011/tournamentid=2011031/leaderboard/index.html

Early leads for Poults and Quiros. Both should have now secured their places in the next round assuming they hold onto their leads.

Quiros through then. Poults ended up halving his match. So a question arises. Who goes through from their group if the final match between Molinari and Lawrie is halved?

WillyGilly wrote: So a question arises. Who goes through from their group if the final match between Molinari and Lawrie is halved?

All 3 have a play off.
i) Where two players are tied within a group (in any position within the group) then their specific head to head match result will be used to identify which player is placed higher
ii) If two or more players are still tied then those players will compete in a hole-by-hole play-off.
iii) If all three players win one match in their respective group then all three players shall play-off.

Wowzers huge comeback from Fisher. 4 down at one stage and 3 down with 4 to play, wins the last 4 holes to win. Lukey had better watch out.

Who shall I put the mockers on by tipping next? Quiros is the other with home advantage, plus his length helps on the par 5s!

Saturday's draw:

Seung-yul Noh (Kor) v A Quiros (Sp)

M Kaymer (Ger) v S Kjeldsen (Den)

R Fisher (Eng) v C Schwartzel (SA)

L Donald (Eng) v J Edfors (Swe)

J Vegas (Ven) v N Colsaerts (Bel)

G McDowell (NI) v R McIlroy (NI)

A Baddeley (Aus) v F Molinari (It)

L Westwood (Eng) v I Poulter (Eng)

Can't get used to watching this in Andalucia it has lost its spiritual place in my heart since its move from wentworth

I often wondered what happened to the 1970's London Labour Councillors. it appears that they are now working for the EPGA on the World Matchplay format.

Feel sorry for Westy, loses 1 down to Poults shooting 67 to Ian's 66, while Luuke scrapes past Edfors with a 73. Still, it looks like Poulter's going to get through to the semi, and Donald and Kaymer will play each other so it'll be Poults (I think he'll beat Colsaerts) to determine who's #1 on Monday.

SmithersJones wrote:Feel sorry for Westy, loses 1 down to Poults shooting 67 to Ian's 66, while Luuke scrapes past Edfors with a 73.

But surely that's the beauty of Matchplay?

Davie wrote:

SmithersJones wrote:Feel sorry for Westy, loses 1 down to Poults shooting 67 to Ian's 66, while Luuke scrapes past Edfors with a 73.

But surely that's the beauty of Matchplay?

Not in different matches, no.

Poulter's having a mare this morning, Luke looking majestic. We'll have a new world number one, again, tomorrow I suspect.

Poults wins on the 19th, setting up an all English final. Holed huge (mentally) putts on 17 and 18 for halves in birdie to take it to extra holes.

As a side note, I found it quite poor that they went back to 18 rather than the first for extra holes.

Smithers, Quite right. More made for TV than Match Play, but sure the sponsors have got the final they wanted. Stil not sure about Poulter having got this far without winning either of his first round matches, but them's the rules I suppose. He'll be happy regardless.

Lots of vagaries with the format Kwini, agreed. I suppose the flipside of that argument is should he have been eliminated despite not losing either match? One thing it has done is made me look forward to Wentworth even more - lots of top players seemingly bang on form, should be a great tournament.

Really a made for TV event ... crowds LPGA like. Good for Poulter, but a prime example of why a pro making a living would not like a steady does of this.

Well done Poults, not the greatest final but he ground it out better than Luke.

I guess one of the wild cards for next years Ryder Cup has been determined! (Poults). Seems he doesn't need to qualify outright -- so he can probaly just stay in the US from now on....

personally I'm thrilled that Poults has got his first win of the year and hope that kicks him onto better things.

I had money on Luke winning and would also have liked to see him win and get to number 1 (not to mention the boost to my rather flagging sports bet account)

I hope this gets Poults more into contention for the strokeplay events though

This week at Wentworth would be a good start Davie.
Fact is, though, Poults doesn't have a PGA Tour strokeplay top ten in a full field event for 21 months, nothing better than 8th since his second at The Players in 2009. He's in serious danger of missing some FedEx Play-Off tournaments this year unless he can stitch together some decent US results. Not holding my breath given his likely schedule.
Can't actually see where he's going to play before Congressional, perhaps Memphis I suppose, and he's in danger of no fulfilling his minimum 15 event requirement. He's "committed" for Hartford so look forward to seeing him there!