World Number One Rory McIlroy and last year’s beaten finalist Victor Dubuisson are among the 30 European Tour Members hoping to extend Europe’s run of success in the WGC-Cadillac Match Play Championship, which this year moves to TPC Harding Park in San Francisco.
Dubuisson came agonisingly close to becoming the sixth European Tour Member to lift the trophy 12 months ago, when he was beaten in an enthralling final by Jason Day.
The mercurial Frenchman produced some short game wizardry to push Day all the way, but the Australian eventually prevailed on the 23rd hole to succeed Matt Kuchar as champion.
Kuchar’s victory was preceded by a win for Hunter Mahan, but prior to the American’s triumph European Tour Members had enjoyed an unprecedented period of success in the tournament.
Henrik Stenson set the ball rolling with his victory in 2007, before Australian Geoff Ogilvy and the English duo Ian Poulter and Luke Donald got in on the act in successive seasons from 2009-2011.
Stenson and Poulter will both be bidding to become the first Europeans to lift the trophy on more than one occasion, while Donald will instead be attending his brother’s wedding this weekend.
Donald’s place in the 64-man field has been taken by World Number 65 Miguel Angel Jiménez, whose best performances came in 2000 and 2011, when he reached the quarter-final stage.
By his own high standards McIlroy’s record in the tournament is relatively modest, with a runner-up finish to Mahan in 2012 the only time he has progressed past the quarter-finals in six previous visits.
McIlroy, who leapfrogged Danny Willett at the summit of The Race to Dubai with his tied fourth finish in the Masters Tournament, broke his World Golf Championships duck in last year’s WGC-Bridgestone Invitational, and the Ulsterman will now go in search of his 11th European Tour title in California.
Willett is one of seven European Tour Members making their debuts in the US $9.25 million event. The remaining six are Tommy Fleetwood, Brooks Koepka, Anirban Lahiri, Alex Levy, Andy Sullivan and Marc Warren. This brings the total number of European Tour Members who have competed in the WGC–Cadillac Match Play Championship to 119 since the inaugural edition in 1999.
For the first time this year, the field will be divided into 16 groups of four players each, who will play round-robin matches on Wednesday, Thursday and Friday. The player with the best record in each group then progresses to the last 16, when a straight knockout format will be adopted.
Saturday features the last 16 matches in the morning, and the quarter-finals in the afternoon. The semi-finals will be contested on Sunday morning, with the 18-hole final taking place that afternoon.
The top seeds in the group stage will correspond to the top 16 players in the Official World Golf Ranking, with the remaining three players in each group determined by a blind draw from three pools, based on their position in the World Ranking. The draw will take place on Monday afternoon.
