Sutherland Goes Unmatched

It remains to be seen how bright a future a $5.5-million match play tournament will have, especially when Tiger Woods, David Duval and Phil Mickelson check out before they get their mints on their pillows.

If throwing around hundreds of thousands of dollars in prize money is what it takes to create a buzz, then that’s just about all the Accenture Match Play Championship had going for it Sunday at La Costa. That is, unless you consider it compelling to send out the 45th- and 62nd-seeded players and watch them do battle over 36 holes.

It certainly wasn’t the fault of Kevin Sutherland (No. 62) that he won $1 million by edging Scott McCarron, 1-up, in a match that began at 7:30 a.m. and lasted until just after 3 p.m., about the time one last McCarron putt failed to go in. After all, Sutherland did what he was supposed to do--beat everyone in his path and score his first PGA Tour victory at age 37.

Maybe they should have called it the California Cup, since the final involved two guys from Sacramento who played junior golf together. Meanwhile, McCarron finished a Sunday unfulfilled for the second consecutive week. At Riviera last Sunday, he lost a lead, bogeyed two of the last three holes and lost the Nissan Open.

At La Costa, he found out he isn’t even the best player from Sacramento.

“Whatever I said last Sunday, ditto,” McCarron said about coming up short two weeks in a row. “Brutal.”

The winning player from Sacramento didn’t play that well from the tee, which can happen when you play six matches in five days, but he was terrific everywhere else, especially out of the rough and on the green using his new ‘claw’ putting grip.

For instance, Sutherland hit only 11 of 28 fairways. Actually, you can say he hit 12, if you count the fifth fairway, which Sutherland hit while playing the second hole.

“It was so bad,” Sutherland said. “I just forgot about even trying to hit the fairway. I was deciding what rough it would be better to be in, left or right.”

Sutherland did not take a lead until the 33rd hole. McCarron’s seven-foot putt rimmed out and Sutherland won the hole with a four-foot putt for par.

McCarron’s best chance to get even was at the closing hole. Sutherland drove into the right rough, then into a greenside bunker. McCarron’s second shot landed about eight feet to the left of the flag. But Sutherland blasted out of the bunker to two feet, which meant that McCarron would have to roll in his putt to stay in the match. Instead, it rolled just to the left, missing by inches.

“I thought I hit it perfectly,” McCarron said. “That’s just the way it goes.”

Sutherland made one birdie over the back nine in the afternoon and so did McCarron, but McCarron lost the 32nd and 33rd holes with bogeys.

McCarron’s problem was that despite how well he felt he was hitting his putts, not enough of them went in. He missed a seven-footer for par at No. 14, the 33rd hole, had a seven-footer rim out for par at the 15th, missed a 12-footer at the 16th and then the eight-footer at the 18th.

“I should have won, but he was just a buzz saw out there,” McCarron said. For his troubles, McCarron earned $550,000 as runner-up.

The morning round ended just as it had begun--even.

McCarron could have had an edge after the first 18 holes, but three times he followed a birdie with a bogey that enabled Sutherland to remain close.

After he made a birdie at the 17th to go 1-up for the fifth time, McCarron missed the green at the 18th, ran his chip shot six feet past the hole and missed the putt coming back. Sutherland, who never led the first 18 holes, hit the center of the green and his two-putt par evened the match.

The week didn’t get off to a smooth start, when the top three ranked players in the world--Wood, Mickelson and Duval--lost on the first day. For ABC, which televised the event, and for the players’ sponsors, it was downright bad news. In fact, at Nike, which endorses both Woods and Duval, their ouster became known around the campus at Beaverton, Ore., as “Black Wednesday.”

However, it didn’t come close to being the worst start, although Woods’ demise represented the first time in the four years of the event that the No. 1-seeded player had failed to advance to the round of 16.

After two days, only Sergio Garcia and David Toms were left from the ranks of the top 10. Woods was the lone top-10 player remaining after two rounds in 1999, the event’s low-water point.

Accenture announced Sunday that it had agreed to a four-year contract with the International Federation of PGA Tours to continue as title sponsor through 2006. While PGA Tour Commissioner Tim Finchem said the match-play event will be held in the U.S., it was uncertain if it would remain at La Costa because there are new owners at La Costa Resort and Spa. KSL Resorts, which owns Doral, La Quinta Resort and PGA West, bought the La Costa property in November.

In the consolation match, Paul Azinger bogeyed the first extra hole and Brad Faxon scored a 1-up victory. Faxon made $450,000 and Azinger made $360,000.