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Match Play Championship Preview

02/21/2012 09:41:48 PM

Luke Donald will defend his WGC Accenture Match Play Championship this week in Arizona but there will be six other previous winners looking to steal his crown, along with six Aussies including two-time champ Geoff Ogilvy and Adam Scott.

In a field that boasts 64 of the top 68 players in the rankings, English world No.1 Donald headlines a Bobby Jones bracket that also includes Scott, as well as major winners Ernie Els, Retief Goosen, KJ Choi and Jim Furyk.

Donald begins his title defence at the Ritz-Carlton Golf Club at Dove Mountain against Els, who only scraped into the field as the final entrant when Phil Mickelson confirmed he would not be contesting the event.

But while he has slumped to No.68 in the rankings, the veteran South African has shown a liking for match play conditions in the past, winning the Volvo World Match Play Championship seven times in 14 years between 1994 and 2007.

Seeded No.2 behind Donald in the bracket, Scott begins against Englishman Robert Rock, the recent Abu Dhabi Championship winner and Furyk could be his third-round opponent if both get that far before a potential quarter-final clash with Donald.

The Gary Player bracket includes three of the six Australians, with John Senden and Jason Day set to collide in the second round if Senden can see off Englishman Simon Dyson and Day can beat Rafael Cabrera Bello.

Reigning US Masters champion Charl Schwartzel or 2010 winner Ian Poulter loom in the third round for Senden or Day while US Open winner Rory McIlroy is the top seed in the bracket and has been drawn first against South African George Coetzee.

If McIlroy reaches the third round he could be confronted by 2006 and '09 winner Ogilvy, who first has to get past US PGA Championship winner Keegan Bradley and then if he does so either Spaniard Sergio Garcia or his compatriot Miguel Angel Jimenez.

Greg Chalmers has a tough first-up assignment against German Martin Kaymer in the Ben Hogan bracket, the former world No.1 and 2010 US PGA Championship winner who also finished runner-up to Donald 12 months ago.

Kaymer is the top seed but it's a treacherous bracket with 2005 winner David Toms as well as a bottom half that includes 2001 champion Steve Stricker and major winners Graeme McDowell, Louis Oosthuizen, YE Yang and Zach Johnson.

Aussie Aaron Baddeley opens his campaign against Oosthuizen but if he is successful things are unlikely to get easier with each round as he could then face Stricker in the second round before matching up against McDowell, Yang, Johnson or Hunter Mahan.

Englishman Lee Westwood heads a Sam Snead bracket that also includes 14-time major winner and three-time champion Tiger Woods, 2000 winner Darren Clarke, Webb Simpson and last-start Northern Trust Open champion Bill Haas.

The match play format often throws up shock results, particularly in the first couple of rounds, so don't be surprised if one of Donald, McIlroy, Kaymer or Westwood gets beaten in the early stages.

But overall it shapes as another big week with world No.24 Paul Casey the only other player from the top 64 not competing, nine of this year's 11 winners on the US PGA and European Tours in the field and Donald seeking to become the first player since Woods in 2003-04 to go back-to-back.

 
Photograph Copyright : Getty Images

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