Good grief.
Good grief that was beyond awful.
Thank the High Heavens that the WGC Match Play is over and we can get back to the business of tournament golf, you know, the kind where you have more than four guys on the golf course on Sunday afternoon.
We’re thinking that Graham DeLaet was spot on with this little tidbit:
“Played Match Play in Tucson in 2014. Early group on Wednesday, lost. Threw my clubs in my car and was on my couch in Scottsdale by 2 p.m. Collected 30k and spent the weekend at home. That’s a good format. This one sucks.”
The “this one” he was referring to is this juiced-up funky version of match play and we agree with Henrik Stenson who says it’s fake match play the first three days when you have all these cute little groups of four to make sure you’ve got 64 players on site until at least Friday afternoon. Then to make the guys really happy, you have a bunch of meaningless matches on Friday for guys who have already been eliminated from any shot at the round of 16.
This latest version ended mercifully early Sunday afternoon at the tricky Austin Country Club.
There were four guys on the entire course Sunday morning and for the fans, what do you do?
Most probably hung around the high-end VIP venues and sipped Bloody Marys. Geez, doesn’t Justin Thomas look tired?
Finally the morning misery ended with J.T. losing to Bubba Watson after dominating most of the week. Gotta hand it to J.T. He was coming in off wisdom-teeth yanking two weeks ago and then strep throat on top of that. How do you think he was feeling after three days of matches then 36 on Saturday and another 36 on Sunday?
DeLaet was spot on. This totally sucks.
What a way to get ready for The Masters — wear yourself out with 54 holes followed by back-to-back days of 36 holes. Yeah, that’s the ticket. Somewhere Tiger Woods is awfully glad he wasn’t around Austin last week.
Now add the fact that the championship match between Watson and Kevin Kisner was one big fat fiasco.
Bubba birdied the first hole for a quick one-up lead then watched as his opponent suddenly turned into Tony Romo and went on a bogey-spree for the ages. Bogeys on five of the next six gave Bubba a 6-up lead thru seven which promptly Johnny Miller to blurt out:
“It gets to the point where it’s almost embarrassing.”
Embarrassing? This match play Sunday was way beyond that. It was unwatchable. Even the consolation match was a dud where an obviously fatigued Justin Thomas wasn’t able to put up much of a fight against Alex Noren. Noren won easily — 5-and-3 and afterwards J.T. simply offered: “I’m definitely tired. I wasn’t hard to beat this afternoon.”
Meanwhile back at Bubba’s stomping of Kisner, things didn’t get any better and there was nothing Johnny Miller and the rest of the broadcast witnesses could do to give any life to the Watson-Kisner death march.
It ended mercifully after just 12 holes, Bubba winning 7-up with six holes remaining. Could have been worse. Bubba missed some short birdie putts on the way to the rout.
Kisner just shook his head when they stuck the mic in front of him. “Just one of those days. I’m looking forward to Augusta.” He’ll want to forget this one the moment his car pulls out of Austin Country Club. Amnesia is his friend.
As for Bubba, of course there were tears and then there was mom, who hugged her boy after his 11th PGA Tour win.
This makes two wins for Bubba this season, already, and he’s got to be considered one of the frontrunners for The Masters when they head down Magnolia Lane in eight days.
“I got off to a hot start,” Bubba pronounced the obvious. He couldn’t have been much hotter and Kisner couldn’t have played worse if he tried. “I’m focused on golf,” declared Watson, who can have problems focusing.
Also add the fact that Bubba was putting so poorly that PING engineered a new putter for him, used technology to the max to determine what was wrong with Bubba’s stroke and Voila! Bubba can putt again.
Just in time for that annual trip to Augusta National where Bubba has twice won.
In the meantime, sing Hallelujah!
This stupid WGC Match Play is done for another year.
