McILROY BEATS VEGAS BUT DUSTIN IS OUT OF RACE
RORY McILROY’S fate at the WGC-Dell Match Play Championship is in his own hands once more after he bounced back from his opening day defeat with a victory over Venezuelan slugger Jhonattan Vegas yesterday. With American Brian Harman defeating McIlroy’s first-day conqueror Peter Uihlein in the other group match, it means that a victory for the Northern Irishman over the former today will see him straight through to the last 16 — or in a sudden-death play-off to decide the group winner. It is certainly a much better fate than the one facing world No 1 Dustin Johnson, who’s going to love a final group match against American Kevin Kisner knowing that, whatever the result, he has got no chance of making it through to the weekend. The defending champion followed up his shocking display against Austrian Bernd Wiesberger with one almost as bad against Canadian Adam Hadwin. He has work to do at home on the range next week to get his Masters hopes back on track. Such is his match play reputation, Ian Poulter knows that when he’s taking on an American he has a target on his back. Or, in his own words: ‘I was fully aware Daniel Berger wanted to kick my backside.’ There was no chance of that as Poulter declared himself ‘buzzing’ after a second victory to assume control of his group. He should complete the task today against another American Presidents Cup player, Kevin Chappell, who was totally out of sorts against Tommy Fleetwood, who won 7&6. McIlroy against Vegas was hugely entertaining. On each of the first three greens Vegas holed putts from 15ft or longer to leave McIlroy wondering what he was up against. It says much about the rest of Vegas’s game, however, that two of those putts were for pars and one for bogey. McIlroy was never behind at any stage as he ran out a 2&1 winner. The pick of today’s matches might be the all-Texan affair between Ryder Cup partners Jordan Spieth and Patrick Reed, with the winner moving on to the knockout stages. Reed upped the ante when he had a sly dig at Spieth’s squeaky-clean reputation last week, after being refused a free drop. ‘I’d have got one if my name was Jordan Spieth,’ he said.