Rory suffers jolt but he’s not sunk yet
RoRy McIlRoy was a relieved man last night that the WGCDell Match Play Championship is no longer a straight knockout.
Otherwise he would have been on his way home to Florida after a 2&1 loss to Soren Kjeldsen and with his plans for the Masters in two weeks blown out of the water.
Instead, he has two matches still to play in the group format, introduced two years ago, against American Gary Woodland and Argentina’s Emiliano Grillo.
Even if he doesn’t make the last 16 at the weekend, two more competitive rounds are what he needs with Georgia in mind.
McIlroy had mixed feelings after playing well against the Dane and losing. Four under par when it finished — he would have been sitting pretty in a strokeplay event.
‘I’m guessing if I’d played practically anyone else today I would have won,’ said the Northern Irishman. ‘Credit Soren, he played great. He holed everything.’
American television had scheduled the clash as one of the first matches, clearly seeing little chance of an upset. Which just goes to show what they know about European golf.
‘The challenge for me was to not watch what he was doing because I can’t do what Rory does,’ said Kjeldsen. ‘I told my caddie, I want to shoot five under and see what happens. Well, I shot six under and I won.’
Not even a stupendous 410-yard drive down the spectacularly 12th hole could save Rory. Tumbling towards lake Austin from an elevated tee, it led to Kjeldsen striking one his longest-ever drives at 332 yards and yet he was still far behind McIlroy.
At this point we were in the middle of a stirring McIlroy comeback, as he recovered from two down after 10 holes to win the next three. ‘I thought I had him,’ said McIlroy later.
But Kjeldsen responded with three birdies in four holes to close out the match.
McIlroy will need to beat Woodland today to have a chance of winning the group. He will then hope Grillo beats Kjeldsen, leaving all four with a win apiece going into tomorrow’s last round of matches.
Asked how he rated Rory’s Masters chances, Kjeldsen laughed. ‘I don’t think I’ve ever played with him and thought he has anything to worry about,’ said the Scandinavian.
‘There’s nothing he can’t do. I saw nothing about Rory’s game that would give me a moment’s concern about Augusta.’
Not so Jordan Spieth, well beaten by Japanese Hideto Tanihara. Spieth has played well all year but woke yesterday to a maelstrom of distracting headlines about his comments over wanting the Masters to be over before it has even begun.
Well, his Match Play hopes will be over if he loses today to another Japanese, yuta Ikeda.
As for the eight Englishmen in the field, Paul Casey got them off to a winning start by beating Dutchman Joost luiten.
‘I love this form of golf,’ he said, raising the question: then why not make yourself available for the Ryder Cup?
Ross Fisher’s hopes of a lastminute Masters invitation took a jolt with a 4&3 loss to last year’s beaten finalist, louis oosthuizen, and Andy Sullivan lost to South African Branden Grace.