GOLF'S tortured relationship with match play golf will be glimpsed again this week, as the World Golf Championship Dell Technologies Match Play heads to Austin Country Club for a fifth time.
In theory, match play golf is just the ticket: not only dramatic head-to-head action, but also a welcome break from the endless diet of strokeplay. In practice, however, match play advocates don’t know what to do with themselves all week, on the one hand lauding the format and on the other raging that the group stage sullies its purity. Meanwhile, the sponsors are bereft when, as in the last edition, Matt Kuchar and Kevin Kisner are duelling in the final, not Dustin Johnson and Rory McIlroy. It’s an exciting week with a volatile formula and here are three men who can capitalise on it.
Paul Casey Each Way – 25/1
The last few months of 2020 were curious ones for the Englishman Casey, who threatened to win before accepting second in August’s PGA Championship, finished like a train at the US Open, and led the Masters after 18 holes. It’s not that he played badly in regular events, but he was nowhere near the same standards he reached in the majors. Perhaps that dawned on him during the holiday period because he’s been superb in 2021, making six starts and never finishing outside the top 12. Within that run, he’s claimed victory in the Dubai Desert Classic and two weeks ago finished fifth in THE PLAYER Championship at TPC Sawgrass.
Now he returns to a format that he relishes. He first proved it when winning the old Wentworth World Match Play in 2006 and since then he has twice been a runner-up in this event, and also twice made the last eight. It’s tough to win more matches than you lose in match play and it’s even harder to do so over a long period. Casey, however, has done just that owning a career singles match play record of 37 wins, 26 defeats and five halves. Given his chipper mood in 2021, he’s a real live contender this week.
Group 9:
[9] Webb Simpson
[17] Paul Casey
[48] Mackenzie Hughes
[59] Talor Gooch pic.twitter.com/Binc5plisq— WGC-Dell Technologies Match Play (@DellMatchPlay) March 22, 2021
Louis Oosthuizen Each Way – 40/1
South African Oosthuizen didn’t look like a good fit for this championship after his first four visits. At that point he’d played six matches and won just two of them. In the same period he’d lost both his matches at the 2011 Volvo World Match Play. But the last six editions of this tournament? He’s a match play man reborn. Four times he’s made the last eight and in 2016 he finished runner-up. Moreover, two years ago it need the eventual champion Kevin Kisner to dump him out. He’s also developed a fearsome reputation in singles match play at the Presidents Cup, going undefeated in four matches.
What of his form? Well, like Casey he played nicely in last year’s majors. He was T33rd at the PGA Championship, T23rd in the Masters and third in the US Open. More recently he was T11th at the Phoenix Open and sixth in the WGC Workday Championship ahead of making the cut in THE PLAYERS. He’s another who can make the most of the fact that many of the favourites have weak records in match play.
Outsider – Harris English 80/1
If I was to favour any of the leading candidates it would be the American Patrick Cantlay, but ultimately the last pick heads to his countryman Harris English whose profile is rather similar to Kevin Kisner and whose match play record is not especially extensive, but is sneakily good.
Austin CC is quite an undulating track and that immediately calls to mind Plantation in Hawaii, where English won the Tournament of Champions earlier this year. He’s also a winner at TPC Southwind and El Camaleon, both tracks which favour golfers who can cope with blustery wind and grain greens. Again, Austin is much the same with gusting Texas breezes and Bermuda greens. Kisner and Kuchar, the finalists two years ago, were both expert in such conditions. English has also only teed it up in six match play ties, but beaten four gun Europeans (Lee Westwood, Rory McIlroy, Graeme Mcdowell and Shane Lowry). Although there is an element of risk attached to this play, because he dropped out of THE PLAYERS with a sore back, there is also a potential big upside.
