WGC-Match Play: Who Has What It Takes?

To win at match play golfers need to adopt boxing strategies – know your opponent and land the punches where they’ll do the most damage.

Going into the 2nd day of pool play at the WGC-Match Play competition, who’s looking like a champion?

Match Play in golf is a completely different form of competition. In stroke play you can notch the win without ever thinking about your opponent. That’s not the way match play works.

Match play is up close and personal competition. For me, the closest sports parallel is boxing, another one-on-one contest that requires strategizing against an opponent as much as it does sheer power of the next punch.

Think of it this way: If a boxer doesn’t actually land the punch where it’s going to do the greatest damage, no amount of power will get the knock-out. That’s how match play works.

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The best match play competitors bring a killer instinct to the tee and keep that instinct in play throughout the hole. The most skilled match players aren’t going to wait for the next birdie-able par 5 or the short par 4 where they might be able to drive the green to edge ahead of the field. The “field” in match play is one player and the time to grab the advantage is now.

In the men’s game, two of the best match play competitors I’ve ever watched are Rory McIlroy and Patrick Reed. In the women’s game, Cristie Kerr and – however tarnished she may be after her display of incredibly poor sportsmanship at St Leon-Rot – Suzann Pettersen both bring that killer instinct to the tee.

Forget the traditional civility that informs the game. McIlroy, Reed, Kerr, and Pettersen leave no doubt about their intention. They all want to destroy their opponents, and match play format

The player who survives the WGC-Dell Match Play marathon this week – the pool play, the Round of 16, the quarter-finals, and the semi-finals, will have shown us a mental game that’s as strong as cast iron. Of course there will be some bad shots along the way. That’s just the nature of the game.

But when to concede a 3-footer and when to force your opponent to putt it, when to take advantage of an opponent’s bad shot by playing the safe if unglamorous down-the-middle shot – these are the nuanced dynamics of hole-by-hole match play that make it as interesting to watch as to play.

Who are you watching today?

From Group 4, keep an eye on Louis Oosthuizen and Jim Furyk. They tee off at 10am (all times are ET). Oosthuizen is ahead in this group and Furyk needs to win the match in order to keep his chances of advancing to the Round of 16 alive.

From Group 9, Patrick Reed and Kevin Kisner tee off right behind Furyk and Oosthuizen. Kisner lost to Brooke Koepka yesterday and needs to collect a point today. Reed can get an advantage with a clear win. It’s going to be a battle.

From Group 2, Rory Mcilroy and Gary Woodland tee off at 2:16. This one will be hot. McIlroy lost his match with Soren Kjeldsen yesterday and Woodland is coming in today with the full point he won off Emiliano Grillo. With Jason Day out, McIlroy should be highly favored to go all the way to victory, but he needs to put Woodland away just to stay even and keep alive his hopes of advancing.

From Group 5, Jordan Spieth and Yuta Iketa tee off at 3pm. Spieth’s in much the same situation as McIlroy. He lost his first match to Hideto Tanihara and Iketa halves his match with Ryan Moore. Spieth’s currently the looser in his group. He needs to win today just to stay alive.

Next: WGC-Match Play Pool Play Predictions

Golf Channel coverage begins at 2pm ET. How are your brackets looking at this point?

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