AUSTIN, Texas—Tiger Woods is on another new golfing route for a World Golf Championships occasion and faces any other player he doesn’t recognize.
Woods, who arrived Monday and performed nine holes at Austin Country Club, opens the Dell Technologies Match Play towards Aaron Wise, an NCAA champion from Oregon and the PGA Tour Rookie of the Year.
Wise will be the twenty-first participant who had never played with Woods because his lower back from returned surgical procedures stored him out of golf for most of the years.
Woods, the No. Thirteen Seed also has Patrick Cantlay and Brandt Snedeker in his institution. The best other time Woods played against Cantlay was in the 2011 Fry ‘sCom Open while Cantlay was a sophomore at UCLA.
The ultimate time Woods played in this fickle event was in 2013 inside the excessive desert of Arizona when the Match Play became single elimination. The best 3-time winner, Woods, was crushed in the first spherical via Charles Howell III.
It functions sixteen 4-man organizations, playing round-robin play Wednesday through Friday. The winner from each group advances to the knockout stage over the weekend.
The 64-guy field based totally on the arena, ranging from weeks in the past, changed into divisions with the aid of their seeds to determine who went into the top sixteen agencies – Nos. 17-32, Nos. 33-forty eight and Nos. Forty-nine-sixty-four became a lottery to see which participant went into every institution.
There still changed into very little intrigue.
Dustin Johnson, the No. 1 seed for the third straight Year, has Hideki Matsuyama, Branden Grace, and Chez Reavie. Johnson, who won the final World Golf Championship in Mexico City last month, opens with Reavie, who desires to increase out of group play to have any chance of cracking the top 50 in the world and getting into the Masters.
Rory McIlroy, who gained The Players Championship weeks in the past but has completed worse than a sixth-year tie this Year, has Matt Fitzpatrick, Justin Harding, and Luke Litas as the remaining to get into the sector.
One group has nothing but dominant champions. Jason Day, the No. 12 seed, drew Phil Mickelson, Henrik Stenson, and Jim Furyk. Mickelson and Stenson meet on Wednesday, the second time they have played collectively since Stenson received their duel at Royal Troon in the 2016 Open Championship.
The most straightforward drama overdue within the selection technique changed into whidan Spieth in the ”B” organization because the No. 28 seed had yet to be taken, and Patrick Reed from the ”A” group as the No. Sixteen seeds changed into nevertheless available. Reed beat Spieth for the first 12 months to improve out-of-organization play, and they have been breaking up as Ryder Cup partners in France, which led Reed to complain that Spwasecame at the back of the cut-up.
Alas, Spieth’s wide variety turned into play with Bubba Watson, the No. 15 seed and the protecting champion of a match he doesn’t like, and that’s a good deal.
”I vote every year no longer to have Match Play due to the fact I sense like I even have a higher danger in 72 holes than do I individual because we have seen each year a man shoot in the 60s and lose, after which we see a man shoot inside the 70s and win,” Watson stated Sunday. ”And it’s like, ‘Wait for a second, how truthful is this?”’
