New Twist to Match Play


For the first time the WGC-Cadillac Match Play Championship will not be a single-elimination tournament. In an effort to retain star appeal whenever a top seed loses, as has been the case in the past, PGA Tour officials decided on a change in format.

The only individual match-play event on the Tour's annual schedule now involves 16 four-player groups, with the top-16 seeds (based on the World Golf Ranking) in each group. The other three were randomly selected from one of three pools.

Each player is guaranteed to participate in the first three days of round-robin play at the $9.25 million tournament, which starts Wednesday at TPC Harding Park in San Francisco.

From that point forward, the 16 players with the best records in their groups will advance to the Round of 16 for single-elimination match play (in the event of a two-way tie in a group, head-to-head match results will be used as the tiebreaker; a three-way tie will require a sudden-death stroke play hole by hole playoff).

The Round of 16 will be played Saturday morning, followed by the quarterfinals Saturday afternoon. The semifinals will be Sunday morning, followed by the Championship Match and Consolation Match Sunday afternoon.

One player pleased with the new format is Northern Ireland's Graeme McDowell, who won the European Tour's Volvo World Match Play Championship in 2013 but has yet to break through with a victory in the American version.

"The old format of straight knockout can be a little harsh," the 2010 U.S. Open champion told Golf.com's Rex Hoggard on Monday. "You can show up, like I did a few years in Tucson [Ariz.], and shoot your 66, lose and go home. And that can be difficult, especially for the sponsors when their top players are flying home on Wednesday night.

"Even if you lose on Day 1 [with the new format] you still have something to play for."

The pairings include (top seed listed first; Jason Day is the defending champion):

Group 1: Rory McIlroy, Billy Horschel, Brandt Snedeker & Jason Dufner
Group 2: Jordan Spieth, Lee Westwood, Matt Every & Mikko Ilonen
Group 3: Henrik Stenson, Bill Haas, Brendon Todd & John Senden
Group 4: Bubba Watson, Louis Oosthuizen, Keegan Bradley & Miguel Angel Jimenez
Group 5: Jim Furyk, Martin Kaymer, Thongchai Jaidee & George Coetzee
Group 6: Justin Rose, Ryan Palmer, Anirban Lahiri & Marc Leishman
Group 7: Jason Day, Zach Johnson, Branden Grace & Charley Hoffman
Group 8: Dustin Johnson, Victor Dubuisson, Charl Schwartzel Matt Jones
Group 9: Adam Scott, Chris Kirk, Paul Casey & Francesco Molinari
Group 10: Sergio Garcia, Jamie Donaldson, Bernd Wiesberger & Tommy Fleetwood
Group 11: Jimmy Walker, Ian Poulter, Webb Simpson & Gary Woodland
Group 12: J.B. Holmes, Brooks Koepka, Russell Henley & Marc Warren
Group 13: Rickie Fowler, Graeme McDowell, Shane Lowry & Harris English
Group 14: Matt Kuchar, Hunter Mahan, Stephen Gallacher & Ben Martin
Group 15: Patrick Reed, Ryan Moore, Danny Willett & Andy Sullivan
Group 16: Hideki Matsuyama, Kevin Na, Joost Luiten & Alexander Levy

For updated scoring, visit http://www.worldgolfchampionships.com/cadillac-match-play/livescoring.html.