arydolphin
GTHC!
It's time for one of my favorite events on Tour, the WGC-Dell Match Play. There's a new sponsor this year (Dell replaces Cadillac), new course (Austin Country Club instead of Harding Park), and new date (last year's event was in May). The defending champion is Rory McIlroy.
Speaking of the course, it's a par 71 playing at 7073 yards. From what I've read about this course, accuracy and precision are going to be more important than length this week. Also, it's a Pete Dye course, so there's bound to be some interesting design elements in play this week.
The field is based off of World Golf rankings after the Valspar Championship, so nothing that happened at Bay Hill impacts this field. Normally it is the top 64 players in the world, but Jim Furyk is still recovering from wrist surgery and Henrik Stenson has elected not to play, so the field goes down to #66 which is Patton Kizzire. The format for the first 3 days is round-robin play in groups of 4. Each of the top 16 in the rankings will be placed atop a group, with the other slots filled via blind draws from players ranked Nos. 17-32, Nos. 33-48 and Nos. 49-64. The pairing process will be broadcast tonight on Golf Channel at 7 PM. Each group winner advances to the knockout portion: round of 16 is Saturday morning, round of 8 is Saturday afternoon, semifinals are Sunday morning, and the final is Sunday afternoon.
I'm sure that a lot of the attention this week will be on Jordan Spieth returning after a week off and playing his first professional event in the city where he went to college. I'm sure the Texas THP crowd is fired up about that. Another subplot is watching how the Americans and Europeans perform in match play with the Ryder Cup looming later this year. Perhaps a good performance in this event by a certain player could influence the captains' picks for those teams.
Reminder to all fantasy players, it's a Wednesday start this week. Who else is fired up for some match play?
Speaking of the course, it's a par 71 playing at 7073 yards. From what I've read about this course, accuracy and precision are going to be more important than length this week. Also, it's a Pete Dye course, so there's bound to be some interesting design elements in play this week.
The field is based off of World Golf rankings after the Valspar Championship, so nothing that happened at Bay Hill impacts this field. Normally it is the top 64 players in the world, but Jim Furyk is still recovering from wrist surgery and Henrik Stenson has elected not to play, so the field goes down to #66 which is Patton Kizzire. The format for the first 3 days is round-robin play in groups of 4. Each of the top 16 in the rankings will be placed atop a group, with the other slots filled via blind draws from players ranked Nos. 17-32, Nos. 33-48 and Nos. 49-64. The pairing process will be broadcast tonight on Golf Channel at 7 PM. Each group winner advances to the knockout portion: round of 16 is Saturday morning, round of 8 is Saturday afternoon, semifinals are Sunday morning, and the final is Sunday afternoon.
I'm sure that a lot of the attention this week will be on Jordan Spieth returning after a week off and playing his first professional event in the city where he went to college. I'm sure the Texas THP crowd is fired up about that. Another subplot is watching how the Americans and Europeans perform in match play with the Ryder Cup looming later this year. Perhaps a good performance in this event by a certain player could influence the captains' picks for those teams.
Reminder to all fantasy players, it's a Wednesday start this week. Who else is fired up for some match play?
