There’s No Love Loss

It’s not Tiger against, well, anybody, but that’s not an option, so when 28th-ranked Davis Love III goes against 53rd-ranked Geoff Ogilvy today at La Costa, neither of them should feel the need to apologize.

After all, there’s too much money at stake to concentrate on anything else at the $7.5-million Accenture Match Play Championship, where the winner makes $1.3 million while the loser must console himself with $750,000.

Love holed out on the 18th hole to beat Padraig Harrington on Saturday morning, and a 4-and-2 victory over Zach Johnson put him into the final. That is where he will meet Ogilvy, a 28-year-old Australian and this week’s marathon man, who won his semifinal over Tom Lehman, 4 and 3.

So far, Ogilvy has played 95 holes in five matches, four times needing extra holes to win and 10 times facing elimination if the other player had made a putt.

“Obviously, there’s someone on my side this week,” Ogilvy said. “I’ve dodged a few bullets.”

By mid-afternoon, Love and Ogilvy were all that was left from a field that featured 29 of the top 30 ranked players.

Love, who lost to Tiger Woods in the 2004 final, said that it’s different without Woods, who lost Friday.

“It’s always better to not run up against the world No. 1, I guess,” Love said. “I’m not wishing Tiger was here.”

Network executives at ABC might be wishing the opposite, but that’s match play, as everyone has been saying all week.

Love, who played 33 holes Saturday, has gone 85 holes this week and trailed in only four of them. At 41 and an 18-time PGA Tour winner, Love outnumbers Ogilvy in age, experience and victories, which he hopes accounts for something.

“I don’t take anybody lightly,” Love said. “I’m not going to call somebody a favorite, but I’m certainly older and more experienced.”

No matter what happens today, it’s last call at La Costa, which is disappearing from the PGA Tour for the first time since 1969, when the Tournament of Champions moved from the Desert Inn at Las Vegas. The match-play tournament began at La Costa in 1999 and will be relocating to Tucson in 2007.

Johnson and Lehman play an 18-hole consolation match today.

Love made it into the semifinals in spectacular fashion, holing out from 112 yards at the 18th, winning 1-up over Harrington. The ball bounced a couple of times and spun back into the hole for an eagle and a victory, a result that didn’t even upset Harrington, who had hit his third shot to 12 feet from the hole before getting a close-up view of Love’s shot.

“It’s actually not a tough way to lose,” Harrington said. “It’s a good way to lose if you’re going to lose.”

Said Love: “Every once in a while you get lucky.”

Lehman nosed out Chad Campbell, who sent Woods home Friday afternoon, closing his 21-hole victory by making a 20-foot birdie putt.

Lehman said he didn’t play well and neither did Campbell: “They should send us both home. But a win is a win. There’s no pictures on the scoreboard over there.”

Retief Goosen, ranked third and the last top-seeded player, said his goodbyes after losing, 3 and 2 to Johnson, the match ending when Goosen made a bogey at the par-three 16th. Goosen birdied the first two holes, but had only one the rest of the way, so he blamed his putting.

As for Ogilvy, he birdied the 18th hole to get even with David Howell, then made a 20-foot birdie putt to win in 19 holes, an unorthodox victory after Ogilvy began the match with 12 pars but didn’t fall behind. Howell could have put him away if he made putts at the 17th and 18th holes, but he missed them both.

Ogilvy went 3-up on Lehman with a birdie at the 14th, and then won at the 15th when Lehman made a bogey. It was the first match Ogilvy had played that didn’t go extra holes.

“Quite strange, actually, to shake hands with three holes left on the golf course,” he said.

A qualifying school graduate in 2000, Ogilvy didn’t break through with his first PGA Tour victory until Tucson last year -- the same week as the match play at La Costa.

Even after what he has been able to get through since Wednesday’s first round, Ogilvy wouldn’t say he’s due for something good.

“I never really have thought, ‘This is my week,’ ” he said. “If I win tomorrow, then I’ll tell you that I [was] thinking it all week.”