Ping’s Different Anser ( 6)
San Francisco Golf Treats ( 8-12)

The backwards thing about the WGC-Accenture Match Play is that the most compelling drama almost always occurs on the first day when there are 32 winners, 32 losers and no such thing as an upset. But you’ll have a hard time selling that to the two finalists – England’s Luke Donald and Germany’s Martin Kaymer.

Donald putted Kaymer off the course in Sunday’s chilly final, 3 and 2, and jumped up to No. 3 in the Official World Golf Ranking. Kaymer, by advancing to the last match, ascended to No. 1 on that same list.

It’s impossible now to ignore that the top four in the OWGR are all Europeans. And it’s impossible not to beg the question: Whither American golf?

Relax, Yanks. These things go in cycles. It wasn’t that long ago astute observers were pointing out that no Euro had won a major in the 21st century. Then Padraig Harrington stared down Sergio Garcia at the 2007 Open Championship at Carnoustie. Then the floodgates opened.

Saturday’s two losing American semifinalists were Matt Kuchar, who can flat play with that flat swing, and the stupefyingly-long Bubba Watson, who wore a magnesium-alloy watch worth $525,000 and talked about himself in the third person.

Meanwhile, a 17-year-old Italian man-child named Matteo Manassero won two matches, while former world No. 3 Tiger Woods (who is almost twice Manassero’s age) didn’t win anything.