WCG-Accenture Match Play
winner Matt Kuchar
Rory’s Slow Start
What Hath Finchem Wrought?
Anchor Men
So, once again, the WGC-Accenture Match
Play turned out to be interesting mostly just to
friends and family of the finalists.
We’ve seen this movie before. It wasn’t
Lincoln. Or even Tin Cup. And, once again, much
of it it belonged on the cutting room floor.
To blame the lack of compelling drama on
the format, or the weather or jumping chollas
is to miss the point and lose the plot.
As long as too many top seeds keep playing too many early round matches looking like
they’re more concerned about hailing the next
NetJet out of town, too many forlorn
bracketeers will turn their shredders on and
their sets off long before the last putt has
dropped late Sunday.
None of which is the fault of surpassing
winner Matt Kuchar who, in the final, unhorsed defending champion Hunter Mahan,
who had de-plaided Ian Poulter in a semifinal.
No, the real news from frost-bitten Arizona
earlier in the day came when commissioner
Tim Finchem chillingly confirmed that his
Tour opposes the USGA’s proposed anchored
putting ban.
There are people in high golf places who
fear this will lead to an unwanted daisy chain
of events that could produce runaway bifurcation that could mandate, among other things,
different equipment requirements – and,
eventually, different golf balls – at different
major championships.
Does anybody really want to go down
that road?
Meanwhile, back in the present, the disaster of the week in golf was the triple-bogey
eight (snowman? snowwoman?) produced by
Ariya Jutanugarn to lose the Honda Thailand
LPGA by a shot on the 72nd hole.
The good news for the women’s game?
Jutanugarn, 17, handled the loss with grace.
She is too talented not to bounce back.
Late Collapse On LPGA
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