By Wes Rodgers

GolfWRX Contributor

Golf’s World Golf Championships-Accenture Match Play Championship.  Each year at this time, the world’s best golfers congregate to compete in a unique, ultra-competitive elimination style format to determine a champion who will have doggedly earned a distinct title. And along the way, golf fans who choose to watch this competition will have a rejuvenated sense and anticipation of the upcoming change of seasons, and a small foreshadowing of the March Madness atmosphere of the basketball season.  Both of these tournaments will inspire millions to dust off their clubs, shine their sneakers and get their competitive juices flowing.

The fans of golf will get to see the professionals fighting for their lives in a do-or-die situation.  There is a tangible connection to the regular weekend hacker and the professionals in this event.  Through this event’s lens, they seem more like us, more real, if you will.  More fallible.  If the pros do not perform well, unlike a stroke play event where they are afforded the opportunity of at least two rounds before the cut and making money, this could be “one and done” for this week.  Albeit, the money is assured to filter into their bank accounts even for a first round loss at the Match Play, the shame of showing up, teeing it up and having to go wheels up after 18 holes seems embarrassingly humbling.  Sort of like the weekend hackers’ low flying quail off the first tee on an early, humid Saturday morning of a double low-ball battle.  Such a tee shot sends a usually anxious and optimistic golfer directly to the worthless well searching for the elusive bucket of confidence.  We, the regular fans and hackers, really appreciate seeing the pros being tested mentally, apart from their apparent ease at which they normally play this great game.  You can feel their discomfort at times in match play.  You can also see the gamesmanship if you care to notice.  This is yet another connection to the mortal golfer.  A 4 foot concession.  How about a 1.5 foot putt which is not conceded?  Or the possibility that one pro might “slow play” the other pro.  All examples of gamesmanship.  For all of us who play golf, we can understand that.  We can’t always understand, depending on your skill level, how a pro shoots a 65, much less 65’s back-to-back on a very demanding golf course.

Perhaps another reason fans find this tournament so compelling is the fact that March Madness is right around the corner, and we are wrought with anticipation of a competitive bracket style tournament.  The obvious similarity is the brackets that are used in these two tournaments.  The only other real similarity is the possibility of one or more “Cinderella’s” to emerge and fend for the title.  Whoever has heard of Sing Me a Ballad (Sang Moon Bae) or Robert “rock-a-bye baby” Rock, who has already notched a head-to-head victory over Tiger earlier this year?  Or perhaps Kyung-Tae “kar-a-te kid” Kim?  Or the obvious name correlations that will ring a Rafael Cabrera “Bello”, such as Alvaro “quiver on the first tee” Quiros and Jason “the duffer” Dufner?  We, the regular golfer, can relate to these!  We can also pull for the underdogs in the NCAA tourney.  Without doubt, there will be a Cinderella story in this year’s basketball tournament.  We just don’t know who or how deep they will go yet.  It could be Long Beach State University or Saint Mary’s University.  It could be some other team we’ve never heard of from a barely recognizable conference that we weren’t really sure even existed.  The sure bet is that there will be bracket busters in both tournaments.  The more difficult bracket to correctly predict, however, is the Accenture.  It is easy for the No. 64 seed to defeat the No. 1 seed, especially when you’re talking about Ernie Els (No. 68 in the official world golf ranking) going against world No. 1 Luke Donald.  In hoops, this is not so likely.  In fact, since the field was expanded to 64 teams, a No. 16 seed has never beat a No. 1 seed.

One might say, “well wait a minute,” another similarity is the one-and-done aspect.  This might be true for the current week in golf, however in match play if you lose, the golfers are not done for the season.  Most will even play next week somewhere around the globe.  In hoops, your season is truly over until next fall.  And if this is the case, don’t forget to get your golf clubs out and hit the links while the weather is good, hoopsters!

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