PGA Results: 2012 WGC Accenture Match Play

WGC Accenture This past week's WGC Accenture Match Play was some great viewing.  Nearly all of the top 64 players in the world (sans Phil Mickelson) were in action in a march madness style match play bracket.  There were some great match ups. Tiger Woods barely made it out of the first round with mediocre play, and was ousted in the 2nd round by Nick Watney.  The big shocker of the round was that Woods failed to make a fairly easy six foot putt to extend the match on the 18th.  Even Nick Watney expected him to make it, as he was already looking at his yardage book and planning his strategy for the first sudden death hole. The most surprising upset of the tournament was the ouster of world #1 player Luke Donald in the first round by Ernie Els.  Not only did Els beat Donald, he crushed him 5&4. Rory McIlory and Lee Westwood clashed in the semifinal round.  At stake for those two was a possible world #1 ranking.  The winner of their match would face Hunter Mahan in the finals.  A win over Mahan would propel either McIlory or Westwood to the #1 spot.  McIlroy beat Westwood 3&1. The McIlroy/Mahan match was not as good as one would have hoped.  McIlroy must have spent too much mental and physical energy beating Westwood.  Mahan, the hottest player of the week by far, had the match to as high as 4up and cruised to a victory, closing McIlroy off on the 17th 2&1. Luke Donald's #1 ranking stays intact, at least for another week. PGA Tour The rest of the top Tour players were in Playa Del Carmen Mexico for the Mayakoba Golf Classic.  On Sunday's final round Robert Allenby did his best Kyle Stanley at Torrey Pines imitation and blew a two shot lead on the final hole.  He'd enter a playoff with rookie John Huh, who shot a final round 65. Huh?  The playoff lasted an amazing eight holes.  On the 8th playoff hole, the 18th, Allenby sent a drive into the trees on the right and would card a double bogey.  Huh would get his first Tour win.

"Obviously, disappointed, disappointed that I didn't like hit 3-wood off 18 in regulation, like I should have. But that's the way it goes. You make some mistakes sometimes, and that was a major one, obviously. I mean, I had this tournament in the bag, a two-shot lead with one hole to play and just played it like a rookie, pretty much." ~Robert Allenby "It's really hard to explain this. It's major. I mean, it was my dream." ~John Huh

LPGA Tour Angela Stanford weathered a massive electrical storm, delays in play, and a four way playoff to win the HSBC Women's Champions in Singapore at the Tana Merah Country Club.  All told between the round, the weather delay and the playoff, it took eight hours to finish the job.

"Well, it was just a long day, you know, and I bogeyed the first hole and Jenny birdied the first hole. You know, just all day I made these amazing par putts. I can't remember what holes now off the top of my head, but the par I made on 7 I thought kept me in the tournament. And it was just one of those days." ~Angela Stanford