These Matches Can Burn Anyone

You know it as the $7-million Accenture Match Play Championship. The 64 players who tee it up this morning at La Costa Resort and Spa know it as the best possible reason for not unpacking.

This is no place for a golfer to get comfortable, because he could be out of here before the first mud pack hits the floor. Andrew Magee probably had the right idea at the first tournament in 1999. He had packed for only one day, then surprised himself in the first round, kept on surprising himself and wound up having bought a week’s worth of clothes when he made it to the final.

Tiger Woods calls this kind of event “fickle.” Ernie Els doesn’t call it at all. Els, the third-ranked player in the world, thought so little about attending the festivities that he stayed home in London to prepare for his 4-year-old’s first day at school -- next week.

Actually, it is not hard to sympathize with Els, who was in South Africa last week and soon is off to Dubai. But besides geography, there is the issue of performance for Els, who lost in the first round here last year and lost in the second round the year before.

Woods is the defending champion and he is all too familiar with the rigors associated with victory in such a grueling event, where the possibility of defeat lurks behind every dogleg.

“The thing about stroke play, the best player wins that week,” he said. “In match play, the best player that week doesn’t always win. It’s the best player that particular day.”

Woods didn’t have a single bad day last year and defeated David Toms, 2 and 1, in the 36-hole final worth $1,050,000 million.

Toms had been seeded sixth and Woods first. The two top-seeded players have never met in a final. In fact, in 2002, 62nd-seeded Kevin Sutherland defeated 45th-seeded Scott McCarron in the final.

Woods is 14-3 in four years of match play here, but that doesn’t mean he has avoided striking out. He said goodbye early in 2002, a one-match-and-out experience when 64th-seeded Peter O’Malley took him out in the first round, 2 and 1.

Woods got close to winning in 2000, but Darren Clarke defeated him, 4 and 3, in the final, and Woods lost to Jeff Maggert, 2 and 1, in the 1999 quarterfinals.

“It’s the unpredictability of match play,” Woods said. “You know that all you have to do is just beat your opponent that day. Toms and I were talking about that when we were playing our match. If we had to play match play every single week, guys would retire by 40 because of the emotional ups and downs and roller coasters that you go through on 18 holes.”

That’s why Woods would be well advised to be wary of John Rollins, his first-round opponent. Rollins ranks 69th and is seeded 64th, but he is in the same position O’Malley was two years ago.

Also among those who should be feeling uneasy are second-ranked Vijay Singh, who plays Shingo Katayama; fourth-ranked Mike Weir, who plays Rich Beem, and fifth-ranked Davis Love III, who plays Briny Baird.

Phil Mickelson, who ranks eighth but has had his problems here, plays Lee Westwood today.

Jerry Kelly-Sergio Garcia, Stuart Appleby-Justin Rose, Bob Tway-Fred Couples and Nick Price-Colin Montgomerie could be among the opening matches with heightened interest.

Padraig Harrington, who plays Toshi Izawa, is only 1-4 in this match play tournament but says this could be the kind of event where a golfer can get by and get lucky even if he’s not sharp.

“Certainly, that would have been my theory the last five years,” he said. “It didn’t work very well.

“You can certainly win matches any time with average golf and you can lose playing great.”

Woods said his week at La Costa a year ago was one of his best tournaments of the year. He made only five bogeys in 112 holes, only two in the first 102 holes. He also went 40 holes without a bogey and none of his six matches went to the last hole.

“I felt like I really had good control,” he said.

Not many feel loose enough to say the same thing, not this week. Woods said the only realistic approach was to simply take one match at a time -- and hope that it didn’t get rained out.

This is Woods’ fourth PGA Tour event of 2004. Last year, he won three of his first four. The most tournaments Woods played without winning to start a year was eight in 1998.

If that was on his mind, he didn’t act like it. Instead, he said he was thinking about today.

“I’ve got my match with John and, hopefully, we’ll get it in,” he said. “You can’t look ahead to who you’re playing in the second round.”

And the reason for that is ...

“Because you may not be there.”