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WGC-Dell Match Play: Five biggest surprises from group play

By Brandon Raper

AUSTIN, TEXAS - MARCH 27: Rory McIlroy of Northern Ireland looks on in his match against Luke List of the United States during the first round of the World Golf Championships-Dell Technologies Match Play at Austin Country Club on March 27, 2019 in Austin, Texas. (Photo by Darren Carroll/Getty Images)
AUSTIN, TEXAS - MARCH 27: Rory McIlroy of Northern Ireland looks on in his match against Luke List of the United States during the first round of the World Golf Championships-Dell Technologies Match Play at Austin Country Club on March 27, 2019 in Austin, Texas. (Photo by Darren Carroll/Getty Images) /
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Jordan Spieth WGC-Dell Match Play
AUSTIN, TEXAS – MARCH 28: Jordan Spieth of the United States lines up a putt on the second green in his match against Kevin Na of the United States during the second round of the World Golf Championships-Dell Technologies Match Play at Austin Country Club on March 28, 2019 in Austin, Texas. (Photo by Ezra Shaw/Getty Images) /

Jordan Spieth still battling his own game

First Match: 18 holes against Billy Horschel. Halved match.

Second Match: 16 holes against Kevin Na. Wins 3&2

Third Match:18 holes against Bubba Watson. Lost 1 down.

The more I think about it, the more I probably shouldn’t be surprised by this one. Spieth hasn’t been himself at all this year. And every week, he says he knows what he needs to work on, and he says that he’s making progress. Maybe one of these weeks I’ll stop believing that. Maybe that was this week, even. Because even with a chance to advance out of the group stage, he flat-out didn’t show up at all in his third-round match against Bubba Watson.

Call me crazy for believing that what I saw the first two days could hold up, that it could maybe be a key to figuring Spieth’s game out before he returns to the Masters in two weeks. And maybe I’m taking the Match Play too seriously. I get that it’s a completely different strategy than the week-in, week-out grind of stroke play tournaments. But if Spieth plays at Augusta the way he did this week, he’ll be lucky to see the weekend, much less hunting for a second green jacket.

For reference, this was Bubba on the 18th hole Thursday, after murdering his drive and leaving himself in fine position to win his match against Kevin Na:

https://twitter.com/GOLFTV/status/1111009251948924933

Bubba, who apparently actively votes to cancel the WGC-Dell Match Play despite winning the thing last year, took the first four holes against Jordan Spieth on Friday, with Spieth making four straight bogeys to start his round.

I’ll give Spieth plenty of credit in this area: despite playing far below his own standards, he never packed it in. In fact, he didn’t lose a single hole the rest of the match against Watson, winning three and halving the final two holes, both of which were quite winnable. The issue here is the same as its been all year. If Spieth can get the magic back in his putter, which has always been his best weapon, then he’ll start winning tournaments in piles again. If he can’t do that, the struggles are likely to continue for some time.

One positive to take away from this week for Spieth? He was almost unstoppable in his second-round match against eventual group-winner Kevin Na. He lost just one hole in the first 12, going 6-up with six to play. He lost three in a row with an opportunity to close out the match, but getting that kind of lead is at least something to build on heading into Valero and then the Masters.

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