Rory’s gone in one; so is Tiger. Ricky Fowler, Dustin Johnson, Lee Westwood and Keegan Bradley had their work week shortened considerably. Ernie Eels, Bill Haas, Adam Scott and Jason Dufner are other names added to the one and done first round of the Accenture Match Play Championship. These players all have one thing in common – they all lost their first round matches to lower seeded players.
Right about now, the organizers of this tournamemt are either applauding the fact that there is so much parity in professional golf that any golfer can beat any other golfer on a given day or, just maybe, they’re walking around in a daze wondering what happened to the drawing power of this weekend’s event.
But, hey, that golf on the grandest stage. As anyone who follows the sport knows, if you are playing on the PGA Tour (or European, for that matter), you have enough game to beat any of your fellow competitors on any given day.
I, personally, like match play both as a competitor and as a viewer, but, it is fickle at best and can be absolutely maddening at times. Like most television viewers, I want to see the best golfers playing when the chips are on the line. I’d be willing to bet that I’m not alone in not looking forward to a ‘Colsaerts – Fdez-Castrano’ final on Sunday.
The major problem (IMHO) with events like the AMP, is that there is no advantage to being a higher seed. Unlike team sports, there is no home field advantage and unlike, say tennis, there is no best of three or best of five. Something needs to be done to reward those who have achieved a higher ranking coming in to the tournament.
Here are just a few suggestions (feel free to add others):
1) A loser’s bracket. At minimum each golfer would play two rounds and still have a chance to win it all. In bowling, it’s called the consolation bracket and it seems to work just fine.
2) Have all rounds be three six hole matches with the winner being the player who wins the most matches. The higher seed would win all tie-breakers (now that’s an real higher seed advantage).
3) Devise a scoring system for each round with points for holes won, birdies, etc. and have the higher seeds start with ‘bonus’ points.
I can almost feel the purists and old-schoolers shuddering at these suggestions, but, sports, like life is a constantly evolving entity. If even one small tweak makes the event better then it should be implemented before we all have to endure a ‘Noren – Cabrera Bello’ final.
