What’s the worst fear of big-time, match-play golf? It’s a star power outage.
Usually, the best you can hope for is that the stars make it to the weekend, but Tiger Woods, Phil Mickelson and David Duval didn’t make it past Wednesday. On opening day, the $5.5-million Accenture Match Play Championship lost its No. 1-ranked player and top attraction when Woods was upended by Peter O’Malley of Australia, 2 and 1. Then, a couple of minutes later, second-seeded Mickelson was also gone, escorted to the door by John Cook, who birdied three of his last five holes.
And soon after, No. 3 Duval lost to Kevin Sutherland in 20 holes. If you’re keeping score, that’s one, two, three and out.
As far as carnage goes, there may have been worse days, only nobody could recall. Still, though, things could be worse. There cannot be much joy at ABC, where expectations for the weekend TV ratings have officially been downgraded to cooking-show status. It was left to Sergio Garcia to stick a plug in the thing, which the fourth-ranked player did when he beat Lee Janzen, 3 and 2.
“It shows how good the field is,” Garcia said. “If you don’t play well, you’re not going to win.”
Woods said afterward that La Costa’s soft, bumpy greens could stand a bit of improvement, but he also indicated he hadn’t played all that poorly even though he lost so soon. Said Woods: “It’s not the greatest of feelings.”
At least Woods stopped to offer a few comments, while Mickelson left the place so quickly, his visor nearly spun off his head. “I can’t explain it,” he said of his 3-and-2 loss to Cook.
Woods had only one birdie and he didn’t get it until the 16th hole, when he was already three holes down. Woods shook his fist after getting a 25-foot putt to fall, but he was still reeling. Trailing by two holes at the 17th, Woods knocked his approach four feet above the hole while O’Malley was 25 feet away, on the left center of the green.
O’Malley, the 64th and lowest-seeded player in the field, hit his putt and while the ball moved slowly on its way to the hole, Woods started walking toward where he had marked his ball. He got there just as O’Malley’s ball fell into the hole with one last roll. All Woods could do was congratulate O’Malley.
O’Malley made a critical birdie with a 15-foot putt at the 15th.
“It probably wasn’t until I holed that putt that I thought I could win the match,” he said. “I had no pressures on me whatsoever.”
