Woods, Cink cruise to set up title match

MARANA, Ariz. -- He may lose to someone, sometime, somewhere, but no one’s beaten Tiger Woods any time, anywhere for quite a spell.

After he climbed out of bed Saturday at 3:45 a.m., Woods spent the next 12 hours playing 34 holes, making nine birdies and one eagle, winning two more matches and moving to within striking distance of his fifth consecutive PGA Tour victory.

It was all in a day’s work for Woods, who faces off against surprising Stewart Cink in today’s 36-hole final of the $8-million Accenture Match Play Championship.

As Woods has been saying all week, what’s going on out here in the Tortolita foothills north of Tucson is rough stuff, because of the difficulty and unpredictability of match play.

“Every match is its own little battle,” Woods said. “One of the things I learned from my dad is in match play, you have 18 battles. You’ve just got to win more than they do.”

That’s just what he did. All Woods accomplished Saturday was to knock off K.J. Choi, a tournament winner already this year, and then Henrik Stenson, the defending champion who had won 10 consecutive matches over two years.

Stenson said Woods has been pushed this week, from J.B. Holmes to Aaron Baddeley.

“That is all any of us can do, keep on trying and eventually we’ll get him,” he said.

But not this time. To keep himself focused, Woods was hard on himself after even the slightest of missed shots, and showed his anger on more than one occasion in his match with Stenson.

“I tried to get as frustrated and mad at myself as I possibly could at times to get myself fired up and back in the match and refocus what I have to do and not let this match slip away.

“It’s very easy to do because it’s been a long day [and] he’s playing well. All it takes is just one mistake and the tide can switch.”

The tide has been rolling in the proper direction for Woods for a long time. He hasn’t lost since the first weekend of September, and if his victory at the unofficial Target World Challenge is counted, Woods’ worldwide victory streak is actually six.

It is Cink’s mission to make sure it doesn’t get any longer.

Cink, who won his semifinal against Justin Leonard, 4 and 2, hasn’t won since the 2004 NEC Invitational, a span of 85 tournaments. Woods has won 22 times in that stretch.

But Cink should be encouraged by that victory in 2004 because he beat Woods by four shots.

“I like playing with him,” Cink said. “When you play with him in the later part of the tournaments, it means you’re doing something well, so I’m happy to be there again.”

Woods never trailed Stenson and said he felt in control all the way, even after Stenson’s 12-foot birdie putt squared the match at the 16th hole.

At the 596-yard 17th, Woods was back in front to stay, although it took a knee-knocking bunker shot to get him there. Woods’ second shot found the bunker to the left of the green, but Woods knocked it out to within 12 feet of the hole, and then nailed the left-to-right breaking putt for a birdie.

Woods said he had an uphill, side hill lie in the bunker and played about 18 feet of break.

“You hit it two or three feet past the hole and it’s off the green,” he said. “I was telling myself, just get inside of him and at least give yourself a putt at it, and I did that.”

The match ended with Woods on the 18th green in two and Stenson spinning his third shot back off the green, then conceding.

Woods started slowly, but finished fast in his 3-and-2 quarterfinal victory over Choi in the morning. Woods knocked his drive left and had to take a drop, giving the first hole to Choi.

Woods got even at the second when he made a 16-foot birdie putt and took the lead at the 10th when he chipped in from 33 feet short of the green.

With three birdies in a four-hole stretch, Woods took care of his business. He rolled in an uphill, slight left-to-right breaker from 26 feet at the 12th, and then followed with a 23-foot putt at the 14th and a 30-foot uphill put at the 15th for a 3-up lead.

Stenson won five consecutive holes to take a big lead on Woody Austin in their quarterfinal match, and then held on for a 2-up victory. Leonard birdied the last hole to defeat Vijay Singh and reach the semifinals for the first time.

Cink has been on a tear, rolling over U.S. Open champion Angel Cabrera and British Open champion Padraig Harrington to reach the final. Cink had eight birdies in his 3-and-2 victory over Cabrera in the morning, and then rang up six birdies and an eagle in his first eight holes against Leonard.

The third-place match between Leonard and Stenson is about money, not consolation. The winner gets $575,000, the loser $475,000.

Of course, the stakes for Woods and Cink are much higher, and it’s not only about the money, although it’s a tall stack.

The winner earns $1.35 million and $800,000 goes to the runner-up. Woods has his winning streak in sight and Cink is trying to prove to himself he is not the underachiever he thinks he is.

The last time Cink and Woods were in close proximity was the 2006 Bridgestone, formerly the NEC, where Woods beat him in a four-hole playoff.

Woods and Cink go back a long way, their paths crossing in some junior events.

In 1995, when Cink was a senior at Georgia Tech and Woods was a freshman at Stanford, their teams played in an exhibition at Dalton, Ga. Cink remembers winning his match against Woods.

“But that’s a while back.”

thomas.bonk@latimes.com