By Shane Ryan
AUSTIN, Texas—After a brilliant scrambling par on 18 that preserved a 1-up victory over Bryson DeChambeau, Tommy Fleetwood was walking past the putting green on his way to the media flash zone when Jordan Spieth, hitting out of a bunker, couldn’t resist taking a quick shot.

“That was fun to watch,” he said.

Fleetwood thanked him, but Spieth wasn’t finished.

“But you could have just made the putt on 17 and saved yourself the trouble.”

Fleetwood responded to Spieth’s sly grin with a laugh, and a few minutes earlier, when he stood in a wet gulley, among clumps of deergrass on straddling a creek as he contemplated his second shot on 18, he was no doubt having the same thought.

In fact, there were a few opportunities to end a match that DeChambeau seemed eager to give away on the front nine, when errant drive after errant drive and a few missed putts to boot handed the English Ryder Cup star a 4-up lead after seven. Not insurmountable, quite, but getting close. (Fleetwood’s only real error on the front came when his caddie snapped a pedestrian sign.) But when Fleetwood found the water on 11, the margin had been cut in half. They traded wins with birdies on 12 and 14, and on the 15th, Fleetwood had his first chance to really put the hammer down with a five-footer for par. He blew it past, watched his lead drop to 1-up, and it was anybody’s match with three to play.

DeChambeau returned the favor with an approach on 16, and it was all he could do to make par and halve the hole. Meanwhile, Fleetwood got into trouble of his own and needed his biggest putt of the day, from 14 feet, to maintain his advantage.

That brought them to the 17th, a par 3 nestled into a hidden plateau, with forest falling off to the left. DeChambeau’s tee shot landed in the right fringe and spun back to the green, but not enough for his liking.

Michael Reaves

“It didn’t ever spin back,” he said to himself, incredulous, as he walked to the green. “There’s no way. There’s actually no way.”

His 20-footer slid past, leaving Fleetwood with 14 feet for the win and the chance to avoid being burned by Spieth post-round. But this wasn’t the kind of match where anything came easy, and his miss sent them to 18.

A par save for the ages! ?@TommyFleetwood1 gets out of trouble to win the group. pic.twitter.com/94KGTnL7sG

— PGA TOUR (@PGATOUR) March 26, 2021

A quick look at the scoreboard showed that Antoine Rozner was winning his match, which meant that if Fleetwood lost the 18th and tied, he’d be forced to wait two hours to face the Frenchman in a playoff. If he won, he advanced, and though it’s not clear if DeChambeau understood it at the time, he had been eliminated on 17 once his chance to win the match was gone.

Fleetwood made life difficult on himself immediately, pushing his drive to the left, down into the ditch, where he had to place his feet on opposite sides of the creek just for a chance to punch one uphill in the vague direction of the green. With DeChambeau in the rough just 34 yards from the hole after another massive drive, the situation looked untenable, and worse once Fleetwood sent his second into the rough beyond the green and DeChambeau punched up to eight feet.

But it’s a special quirk of match play that a tremendous, improbable up-and-down is just as good as a two-putt from in close, and that’s exactly what happened—Fleetwood’s half-flop from off the green settled four feet from the pin, DeChambeau missed another putt, and Fleetwood came back from the brink of disaster to win 1-up.

Glum, DeChambeau marched off the green, tossed a ball to some fans screaming “Deesh!” at him, and disappeared with the “B.A.D.” book jutting out of his back pocket. Moments later, after running the Spieth gauntlet, Fleetwood stood in the flash area, hair pushed back from his head, blue-gray eyes so light they’re practically transparent, and analyzed what announcers called “the vagaries of match play.”

“I think that’s the beauty of the tournament in a way,” he said. “I’m sure there’s plenty of guys that over three rounds would have a better score than me right now, but some of them will be going home and I’m advancing. That’s just how the event works out. You have to do enough on the day against your opponent and then move on, and so far so good for me.”

At the end of a match he rightly called “scrappy,” Fleetwood credited his clutch putting, especially on 15, and spoke a bit about trying to negate the length advantage Bryson holds over everyone.

“I think definitely if your iron play is dialed in, you have a chance to definitely slot one in there beforehand and then add a little bit of pressure,” he said. “And like I say, it’s just so important to be so self-focused off the tee and know that’s your game and build your score or beat your opponent in the way that you can.”

By crook, and especially by hook, Fleetwood gritted out a tough win, and he knows too well that at the WGC-Match Play, all that matters is the win. On to the weekend.

The post In sloppy match, Tommy Fleetwood ditches Bryson DeChambeau, knocking him out of tournament appeared first on Golf Digest Middle East.

By Joel Beall
Even by the vagaries of match play, this Matt Kuchar-Sergio Garcia story is as idiosyncratic as golf can get.

For those that missed the Saturday fireworks at Austin Country Club, Garcia and Kuchar were locked in a WGC-Dell Match Play quarterfinal duel when things went awry at the par-3 seventh. Trailing Kuchar by one, Garcia missed a seven-footer for par to win the hole, his ball coming to rest an inch or two away from the cup. It was a distance that even Suzann Pettersen would concede as good.

However, Garcia went after his putt and gave it a quick-rake, and the ball lipped out. Due to the Spaniard’s swiftness, Kuchar did not have a chance to concede the putt. As such, Garcia lost the hole.

Matt Kuchar did not have a chance to concede Sergio Garcia's second putt.

Therefore, Garcia lost the hole.

Kuchar told the official he wanted to give Garcia the putt, but that cannot be done retroactively. pic.twitter.com/AJFF8N5J7h

— PGA TOUR (@PGATOUR) March 30, 2019

It was a circumstance that clearly did not sit well with Garcia, as evidenced by this reaction at the following green:

Sergio Garcia out there doing Sergio things again ? #PGA pic.twitter.com/Bm6z8tSJvQ

— Jamie in Green Bay (@jamieingreenbay) March 30, 2019

Cameras then caught a tense back and forth between Kuchar and Garcia at the 10th hole. Tensions (relatively) returned to normal for the rest of the match, which Kuchar won, 2 up.

Following the round, Kuchar gave his side of the story to the media.

“Sergio, I saw, missed it. And as I looked up again, I saw he had missed the next one,” Kuchar said. “And I saw him off the green, I said, ‘Sergio, I didn’t say anything, I’m not sure how this works out.’ I didn’t want that to be an issue. So I asked [rules official] Robby Ware, I said, ‘Listen, I don’t know how to handle this, but I didn’t concede the putt, Sergio missed the putt.’ Sergio said, totally his mistake. He knew he made a mistake.”

Simple misunderstanding, right? But then Kuchar continued, and here’s where things went off the rails.

“I said, I didn’t want that to be how a hole was won or lost. And he said, Well, you can concede a hole. I’m not sure I’m ready to concede a hole. And just the rule played out with Robby stating how the rule works. It’s not a— certainly I don’t use any gamesmanship, it’s not a match-play tactic, it’s not anything. It was just one of those mistakes that Sergio made. And I said it’s kind of one of those tough deals in the game of golf.”

The remark that Sergio asked Kuchar concede the next hole clearly caught the media off guard, so much so that Kuchar was immediately asked, “Sergio potentially suggested you conceded the hole?” Kuchar was steadfast in his response.

“I apologized. I said I don’t like the way this was played out. He said You can concede a hole. I thought about it and said I don’t like that idea, either. … What didn’t I like about it? It’s hard to say other than I kind of just stuck to what the rules official said the rule was.”

Though it was an unfortunate situation, such a request is considered bizarre at this level of the sport. For his part, Garcia admitted as much in a separate talk with the media.

“It’s quite simple. I screwed it up, it’s as simple as that.,” Garcia said. “Obviously, I missed my putt, and I kind of tapped it with the back of my putter before he said anything. Yeah, it’s a loss of hole. I understand that. The only issue that it was, was that Kooch was like, I didn’t see it good, but I don’t want to take the hole. I don’t want to do this like this. So I was like OK, it’s fine, what do you want to do? Because there are many options that you can do if you don’t want to take the hole, even though I’ve already lost that hole. But obviously, he didn’t like any of the options that were there.

“It’s fine. At the end of the day, I’m the one that made the mistake.”

Kuchar also took ownership of how things played out. “Typically there’s an acknowledgement. I understand how the concession needs to be vocal, and we’re given these rulings in all our cup events,” Kuchar said. “And I try to do a really good job. I hate when guys kind of mumble something. I try to always be very clear, very vocal. This is one I was on the back of the green. It happened so fast. I knew I hadn’t conceded it. But it was never a tactic or anything. And as I told Sergio, he said, ‘That was my bad. I know I screwed that one up.’”

As for the icy conversation on the 10th, Kuchar merely said the two were trying to get “on the same page.”

Kuchar will play Lucas Bjerregaard in the semifinals on Sunday morning at 10:20 a.m. ET. It’s the farthest that Kuchar has advanced in the WGC-Dell Match Play since winning the championship in 2013.

The post Sergio Garcia suggested Matt Kuchar should concede a hole to “make things even” after rules controversy at WGC-Match Play appeared first on Golf Digest Middle East.

By Christopher Powers
The PGA Tour heads to Texas this week for the WGC-Dell Technologies Match Play, the third of four World Golf Championships this season. This marks the fourth season the event will be held at Austin Country Club in Austin, Texas.

This also marks the fifth year of the event’s new, pool-play format, which doesn’t feel so new any more. The 64 players are broken up into 16 groups of four, and everyone plays each other once in each group, with one man advancing to the round of 16. A won match is a full point and a halved match is a half of a point. The player with the most points at the end of all three matches moves on to the round of 16, and any ties are decided in a sudden-death playoff.

The World Cup style format has yielded some exciting results, with Rory McIlroy, Jason Day, Dustin Johnson and Bubba Watson claiming wins in the last four years. All four former winners are in the field this year, as is Tiger Woods, who will be playing in this format for the first time in his career. Woods is in a group this year with Brandt Snedeker, Aaron Wise and Patrick Cantlay. The group packing the most star power, Group 12, consists of Day, Phil Mickelson, Jim Furyk and Henrik Stenson.

Tee times for Sunday’s matches are below. Check back here each day for the latest tee times.

Sunday tee times for the Semifinal matches (all times ET)

Francesco Molinari vs. Kevin Kisner — 10:05 a.m.

Lucas Bjerregaard vs. Matt Kuchar — 10:20 a.m.

The post 2019 WGC-Dell Match Play Semifinals tee times appeared first on Golf Digest Middle East.

By Christopher Powers
Tiger Woods had a chance to go 3 up on Lucas Bjerregaard at the sixth green on Saturday during their quarterfinal match at the WGC-Dell Match Play. The 14-time major champion was in complete control, and with just six feet left for birdie at the par 5. It felt like he was about to wrap this thing up much earlier than expected. Bjerregaard’s story was a nice one, but Woods was in freight-train mode, firing at every pin and holing every subsequent birdie putt.

But Woods missed, then he three-putted the par-3 seventh hole at Austin Country Club, allowing Bjerregaard to win with a par. That potential 3-up lead was suddenly only a 1-up edge, and Woods’ back-to-back short misses changed the entire match. Bjerregaard, a 27-year-old relative unknown from Denmark with two European Tour wins to his name, hung in there for the remainder of the match, never trailing by more than 1 down and eventually squaring the match at the par-5 16th with a 29-foot eagle putt.

At 17, Bjerregaard had the honour, hitting his tee shot to 13 feet, but Woods answered with a vintage high draw that stuck five feet from the pin. They both holed their birdie putts, setting up a winner-take-all final hole with the match all square, or a potential playoff was they to tie. After identical drives at the short par-4 18th, Woods left his second short in a bunker, while Bjerregaard hit his second 16 feet past the pin. Woods splashed one to five feet, Bjerregaard missed his birdie, and Woods had a five-footer to extend the match.

It’s a putt he’s made countless times in his career, at the 18th hole with all eyes on him, to the point making it has become a foregone conclusion. It still might be in the future, but it wasn’t meant to be on Saturday, as Woods lipped out, giving Bjerregaard the match victory.

“We read it inside left, left centre, and the putt went left,” said Woods, who made seven birdies and still lost his quarterfinal match. “I went back and hit it again and it did the same thing. Just one of those weird spots. Had a lot of difficult pins out there. It is match play and they’re going to put the pins on the difficult side, and they did. And we just have to hit good shots.”

Woods and Bjerregaard both hit plenty of good shots, producing a match that was worthy of a playoff, but Tiger’s putter didn’t cooperate.

“It’s a shame it had to end that way because it was a really good match,” said Bjerregaard, who also beat Henrik Stenson this morning, 3 and 2. “Conditions were tough today and we both threw in a bunch of birdies at it. So it’s a shame it had to finish with a bogey. But obviously, I’m happy to be standing on the winning side.”

So now Bjerregaard heads to the semifinals, where he’ll take on Matt Kuchar, who had an eventful afternoon quarterfinal match with Sergio Garcia. Trailing 1 down on the seventh green, Garcia had a chance to square the match, but missed his putt, then quick-raked the next. By rule, it counted because Garcia didn’t give Kuchar enough time to concede the putt, and Kuchar couldn’t retroactively concede it. That gave Kuchar a 2 up lead.

A noticeably hot Garcia appeared to begin to melt down, but he was able to channel the fire and mount a comeback. He got the match all the way to the 18th hole, needing to win to extend, but a poor second shot cost him and he had to concede the hole, giving Kuchar a 2 up victory. Afterwards, the two cordially shook hands.

Contrary to popular belief, there were two other matches that occurred, both ending much earlier than Bjerregaard v. Woods and Garcia v. Kuchar. Francesco Molinari, who crushed Valspar winner Paul Casey 5 and 4 in the morning, made quick work of Kevin Na, beating him 6 and 5 despite going 1 down on the opening hole. Molinari made six birdies, and at one point had won six consecutive holes to rip the match away from Na. He’s now 5-0-0 on the week, and 10-0-0 in his last 10 matches if you include his incredible record at the Ryder Cup last fall. Scary good.

“Yeah, but Tommy [Fleetwood] had a bit to do with the first four,” said Molinari when asked about winning 10 straight matches. “I hadn’t won a game in match play in ten years. So I was due a few wins.”

Molinari will be pitted against Kevin Kisner in their morning semifinal match. Kisner similarly ran through his Saturday opponents, defeating HaoTong Li, 6 and 5, in the morning and then getting hot late in his round to beat Louis Oosthuizen, 2 and 1, in the afternoon. Kisner was 1 down at the 15th tee but won the next three straight holes to close out the match.

“He’s been playing well,” Kisner said of Molinari, his opponent on Sunday morning. “We’re good buddies, so we’ll have a good time. I know I’m going to have to bring my A-game to compete with him.”

This marks the second straight year Kisner has advanced to the semifinals, and last year he won his semifinal match over Alex Noren on the 19th hole. He went on to lose to Bubba Watson, 7 and 6, which was a nice learning experience.

“I’ll tell you, I learned a lot about the prep,” said Kisner “And I’ll approach how I get ready for the round a little differently and take it a little more seriously. And I’ll be excited if I can get through and play for the title.

“It’s a long week, so my prep will be a little different. I’ll approach getting ready for the second round, if I have a chance to win, a little differently. And look forward to the opportunity.”

The post Lucas Bjerregaard stuns Tiger Woods, Francesco Molinari and Kevin Kisner advance, Matt Kuchar outlasts Sergio Garcia appeared first on Golf Digest Middle East.

By Shane Ryan
AUSTIN — One of the many surprising things about Bubba Watson is that when he’s in high spirits, he’s funny. After his easy 5-and-3 win over Kiradech Aphibarnrat in the quarterfinals of the WGC-Dell Technologies Match Play, Watson sailed through the usual TV interviews in light spirits—Golf Channel, Sky Sports, PGA Tour radio, European Tour whatever—and when told he had one more stop to make for the lowly writers, he couldn’t resist a bit of sarcasm: “Sure, I’ve been out here since 5 a.m., why don’t we do a few more?”

But he was smiling, and his heart wasn’t in the dark place. It’s easy to tell when Bubba has the black cloud over him, and this wasn’t one of those times—once on the dreaded interview stage, he positively chewed up the scenery, a ham in all his glory:

Q. Your next opponent, you’re the only one that stands between him and World No. 1. I wonder if you have any comment on that?

BUBBA WATSON: Does he have to win the tournament, too? For the right price, he can win. No … you didn’t hear that. We’ll take that from the record book.

and:

BUBBA WATSON: A few years ago in Tucson, wasn’t it the same thing with Martin Kaymer? Martin Kaymer beat me, and I think he had to beat me to become No. 1. I guess I’m good at that. If you want No. 1, just beat me, and you’ll be No. 1.

He even came armed with one of his classic Bubba stories that will surely be the lead anecdote in a dozen blog posts and newspaper stories. Get this—he and the family have a vacation coming up, and he scheduled a flight out of the country for Sunday morning, because he never made it to the final day of this tournament and thought, why not? He probably wouldn’t be around anyway. Plus, flights were cheaper on Sunday. But now…now Bubba has to cancel that flight, and his wife’s cell phone is off, and boy is she going to be mad when she finds out!

He delivered the punch line in vintage good-ole-boy rhythm:

“I’m going to have to tell her that we ain’t making it,” he said. “So it would be happy from the golf standpoint, but from the other side it will not be happy.”

Does it matter if a few of the details are a little dubious? That it’s tough to believe his wife won’t know he won his match without a “honey, you better sit down” phone call? That the volunteer standing at the back of the press conference had a point when she whispered, “doesn’t he have enough money not to worry about booking the cheap flight?” That, even though it’s true that he’s never made it to Sunday in Austin, he has reached the final day of this tournament in 2011?

No, actually, it doesn’t—Bubba was in sublime storyteller mode, a raconteur in his element, and if the edges had to be blurred on a few details to make it land a little better, so be it.

And he deserved the creative license, because he absolutely steamrolled Aphibarnrat on Saturday afternoon. After Bubba took a 1-up advantage on the seventh green, I watched the best golfer in Thailand as he started the long walk to the eighth. The temperature fell somewhere in the mid-to-high 80s, but it felt hotter, the way it always does in the early spring when the sun beats down before we’re acclimated to summer weather. And Austin Country Club itself is a brutal walking course—when you’re not beating your way up steep hills, you’re balancing on sideways slopes, wondering why your ankles are so sore and trying not to give the drunk fans any extra entertainment by wiping out on the slick, desiccated grass. I learned quickly how to take a hiatus between the eighth and 11th holes when following a group, if for no other reason than to catch a breather and rest my legs.

Aphibarnrat had no such luxury when he played a grueling 18-hole match with Charles Howell III this morning (he won 1-up with wins on 17 and 18), and now he was being asked to do it again. He is not a fit man (charitably), and anyone who watched him for more than ten seconds after the 7th hole would have concluded first that he was not enjoying himself, and second that he had absolutely no chance to beat Bubba Watson. Spilling out of his shirt (alive with 3-D pentagons, the words “Thailand fragrant property” printed on one breast, and a griffin-like creature on the other), he trudged through the course rather than walked, and his face bore the expression of an amateur biker trying to ascend the last half mile of a category four mountain climb. When the terrain turned hilly, he slouched, torso slumped forward like Charlie Brown at his saddest.

Meanwhile, Bubba had his usual self-consciously erect posture, shoulders thrown back, eyes up, tall and defiant. Some match play golfers like to walk ahead of their opponents, as a sort of intimidation tactic, but it occurred to me as I watched Aphibarnrat amble toward the eighth tee that Bubba had no choice in the matter—with his long strides, he could not have walked behind him if he tried.

Bubba gave the ninth hole away with a chunked wedge to bring his opponent back to 1-down, but from that point on, it was nothing but disaster for the big man. An inexplicable wedge followed by an inexplicable pitch gave Bubba the 10th hole, and Aphibarnrat followed that by three-putting the 11th. Bubba stood on high ground, watching him with both hands on his hips, one foot cocked out, and when the putt rolled past, he and Ted Scott moved without a word to the 12th tee.

“He’s hot-headed, you got this, you’re in his head already,” one fan shouted to Aphibarnrat, but this strange and inaccurate encouragement failed to inspire him as he yanked his drive left. Watson and Scott stared intently at the hole on his approach, silent, as though if they looked long enough the secret to success might rise mirage-like from the water on the left. Boats looked on from “Lake Austin,” which is not a lake at all but a small reservoir where the Colorado River becomes very slightly wider, and one of the boats had a cameraman, an audio tech with a boom mic, and a dozen women wearing only bikinis. They shouted Bubba’s name in unison, and for once in his life he looked a little shy as he half-raised his putter to them.

The 12th hole is gorgeous, with the rusted parabola of the 360 bridge and the limestone cliffs as a backdrop, but its chief appeal to Aphibarnrat must have been the topography—it was downhill. But that didn’t save him from another poor chip, and another lost hole, after which he looked to the sky with a silent groan, a supplication to who knows what. The same thing on the driveable 13th, past the pond smelling of algae and gasoline, where Bubba played the smart move by laying up with iron, but Aphibarnrat refused to take the bait, and did the same. On the walk up the fairway, Bubba chatted with him about the boats, more casual as he sensed the end, but even so he couldn’t make himself walk slow enough and was soon shouting a story over his shoulder from 20 yards ahead as Aphibarnrat mumbled something about jet skis.

Then the big man chunked yet another wedge, made a par-saving putt that looked significant but was not, and fell 4-down when Bubba holed his birdie. Two mundane holes later, the match was over, and Bubba had reached the semifinals at the Match Play for the first time in seven years. In 2011, as he noted, he stood between Martin Kaymer and the number one world ranking, and tomorrow he will play the same role for Justin Thomas.

“It’ll just be a friendly game,” he said. “And hopefully I’m more friendly at the end than he is.”

I hope so too. It’s that, or the black cloud.

The post Bubba Watson’s big adventure: He booms, he rolls, he laughs, he lives to face Justin Thomas on Sunday appeared first on Golf Digest Middle East.

By Ryan Herrington
Like the proverbial tree that falls in the forest, if a drive breaks the PGA Tour’s record for the longest in the ShotLink era, but it comes at the WGC-Dell Match Play Championship, does it count?

Apparently, not. Which is a total bummer if you’re Dustin Johnson.

Playing against Kevin Kisner in his Friday match at Austin Country Club, 3-down and with no chance of advancing to the weekend and defending his 2017 title, we can only imagine what DJ was thinking when he stepped to the tee at the par-5 12th hole. It’s a hole that traditionally sees some mega-blasts, and well, DJ is known for mega-blasts.

But this mega-blast was, well, extra mega.

DJ went long. REAL LONG.

489 yards. ??

Statistics do not officially count in this event. But the longest drive on TOUR in the ShotLink era (2003) is 476 yards by @Love3d. pic.twitter.com/EHgMscMhdt

— PGA TOUR (@PGATOUR) March 23, 2018

As you can read in this tweet from the tour, DJ’s 489-yard poke (aided a bit by the road that bisects the hole) is technically 13 yards deeper than Davis Love III’s official longest drive in the ShotLink era (since 2003). However, because this isn’t a stroke-play competition, the drive doesn’t officially count.

.@DJohnsonPGA hit a 489-yard drive at the par-5 12th. While stats do not officially count at @DellMatchPlay, by comparison, the official longest drive in the ShotLink era (since 2003) is 476 yards by @Love3d at the 2004 @Sentry_TOC.

— PGA TOUR Media (@PGATOURmedia) March 23, 2018

Unfortunately, too, the tour and Golf Channel didn’t catch the actual drive on camera. But we did hear Nick Faldo talk about it as DJ was hitting his second shot (from less than 140 yards) to the green.

The post Dustin Johnson hits a drive 13 yards longer than the longest in the ShotLink era. So why is it not the record? appeared first on Golf Digest Middle East.

By Shane Ryan
At the tail end of Rory McIlroy’s post-match presser on Thursday—he defeated Jhonattan Vegas, 2 and 1, to keep his weekend hopes alive—he was asked if he had any interest in the ultra-hyped Jordan Spieth vs. Patrick Reed showdown. Rory’s eyes lit up, and the question hadn’t left the journalist’s mouth before he interrupted:

“I have a lot of interest in that,” he said, drawing laughs. “What time are they playing?”

When told they had an afternoon tee time about four hours after his early match teed off, McIlroy was ecstatic.

The post You know who else is psyched for the Reed-Spieth showdown? Rory McIlroy appeared first on Golf Digest Middle East.

By Joel Beall
It’s happening. Finally, this Friday. Jordan Spieth versus Patrick Reed, a battle that justifies the existence of the WGC-DellMatch Play. Both players won their opening two matches, preserving the importance that was inherently touted when the match was announced on Monday.

Spieth and Reed made sure not to overlook Charl Schwartzel and Haotong Li, the other members of their pod, during the build-up. But now that the International players have been disposed and the collusion course draws near, Team USA’s dynamic duo can’t avoid the rumble. In fact, judging by this Reed quote, they are playing into the hype.

For, following his match against Schwartzel, Reed was asked about Spieth’s strengths in match play. Reed’s response did not disappoint:

Patrick Reed was just asked about Spieth’s strengths as a match play golfer: “I don’t know, my back still hurts from the Ryder Cup.”

— Shane Ryan (@ShaneRyanHere) March 22, 2018

The post Patrick Reed had the perfect response when asked about Jordan’s Spieth’s match play strengths appeared first on Golf Digest Middle East.

By Shane Ryan
AUSTIN — On the short, par-3 17th at Austin Country Club, Jordan Spieth, 2 up, put the lethal squeeze on Charl Schwartzel, sticking his tee shot five feet from the hole. Schwartzel needed to respond with a birdie to extend the match, and even that might not have been enough. He didn’t get that birdie (his putt from the fringe sailed past), and standing above the hole, near the 18th tee, we all waited for the inevitable concession.

It didn’t come. Schwartzel apparently thought a three-putt from five feet was a possibility, or maybe he simply never concedes when the match is on the line. Spieth missed his birdie putt, and left himself two feet for the win … and again, Schwartzel didn’t concede. Spieth finished him off the hard way, tapping in to move to 1-0 in their Group 4 play on Wednesday at the WGC-Dell Technologies Match Play.

Schwartzel’s move was borderline rude by the unwritten rules of the format, but it wasn’t an enormous insult, especially with the match on the line. “Weird” is probably the best description, and in the small media scrum afterward, that word was bandied about. Michael Greller, Spieth’s caddie, agreed, but Spieth’s reaction was the most telling. Before the Golf Channel’s cameras started rolling, Steve Sands asked him about the non-concede, and Spieth looked genuinely surprised to remember the miniature drama, as though it had happened hours earlier, instead of just five minutes ago.

“Not the way I was putting earlier,” he said. “I would have made myself putt too.”

Then the cameras rolled, and the bland questions and answers ensued: Yes, it’s great to be back in Austin where I went to school. Yes, it’s nice to see kids along the fairway, etc. etc. etc. ad nauseam.

But his initial reaction was instructive, because Spieth seemed sincerely unbothered by an incident that, albeit very minor, likely would have left some golfers a bit miffed. The contrast showed the famous Spieth even keel in action. When he was asked about the incident specifically by another journalist, he minimised it down to nothing and made sure to say that he wouldn’t hold it against Charl. And it was impossible not to believe him.

In the absence of Tiger Woods, the dominant storyline in this week is the Spieth-Reed clash coming on Friday. This is not a case of over-hyping a moment. Having them drawn in the same group at the selection show was staggering in the best way possible, a rare case of golf producing the one-on-one match-up everyone craves.

And there’s almost no chance the payoff will be anything other than fantastic. The Ryder Cup and Presidents Cup duo are used to playing on the same team, and their yin and yang/light side-dark side dynamic will be put to the test when they find themselves on opposite sides. I asked Spieth, a little tongue-in-cheek, whether it felt like they were on a collision course with destiny. He had all the right answers, because he’s Jordan Spieth—he wasn’t overlooking Haotong Li on Thursday, anything can happen, and it’s important not to look ahead.

But with his win over Schwartzel, and Reed’s victory against Li, it at least ensures that neither player will be eliminated come Friday. The match would have been great regardless, but it will be even greater now that they’re playing for something. (It will be greatest, of course, if they both win Thursday and are playing in a winner-takes-the-group scenario on Friday.)

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Spieth didn’t mind Schwartzel’s stinginess with his final concession, given his recent putting issues.

And along with their history, the difference in personalities is what makes this so compelling. If Schwartzel had pulled that move on Reed, he’d still be seething, victory or no victory. It’s the kind of thing he’d never forget, whereas Spieth may not remember it tonight at dinner. But there’s strength in Spieth’s calm, too—perhaps more strength than the emotional typhoon that characterises Reed’s match-play career. Watching them play each other will almost be like watching a fundamental clash of the elements.

Related: What makes a good match-play golfer?

One pairing behind Spieth, Reed was already in classic form on Wednesday. He’s known at this point for his aggression, his ferocity and even his shushing antics, but Reed is also an intelligent match-play golfer. On the “reachable” par-4 13th, already 2 up, Reed put Li in an impossible position by laying up into a perfect position on the fairway. Li evidently found the prospect of copying him insufficient, and as the wind blew, he took out driver. His shot found the water, and when he took a risky line from the drop area—he had no choice—that found the water, too. Reed and his caddie, Kessler Karain, stared back at Li, who had a brief discussion with his own caddie before making the “safe” signal to Reed. It was vague enough that Reed told Karain not to pick up the ball, that they’d wait. But it was a concession, and with just five holes to play, Reed had all but secured the match.

Moments earlier, on the same hole, Spieth narrowly avoided the water on his own lay-up, and then hit his wedge to within a foot. Like Reed, he didn’t have to complete the hole, and watching them edge closer to victory in quick succession provoked in me the sense that we were watching a prelude—the suspense-building scenes that come before the climax. It seems possible, just barely, that when the weekend comes to an end, we’ll all be talking more about Friday’s showdown then about the eventual winner of the tournament. Yes, it may be a dud, and the weekend drama may put this theory to shame, but it’s hard not to feel like something iconic is coming in 48 hours.

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