When it comes to match play, I'm all in for more. I love the format, and think it would be great to see it played in higher events throughout the season. But, the problem is that will never happened, mainly because of Saturday morning at the Accenture Match Play.
Four quarterfinal matches before the field was trimmed to just four golfers, and all four were basically blowouts. It's the reason that match play can fail at times. Like Louis Oosthuizen's win at the British Open a year ago, when there is no chance for a comeback, the passion dries up.
That isn't to say that some of the matches didn't give us drama. JB Holmes was five-up on Bubba Watson with eight holes to play, but the big-hitting lefty is making some waves, giving us at least a peaking interest in that otherwise bland match (the other interesting part of the match? Holmes hit a 413-yard drive on the second hole).
But Saturday's morning matches were the reason that television executives and advertisers wouldn't be pumped for a match play major, or anything like that to end the year (like my suggestion that the FedEx Cup conclude with a match play format). Multiple matches this week have ended with someone winning 8-up, which can't happen if you want viewers to tune in, and when you don't have the star power that previous Accenture events had late into the weekend, you are going to need some drama.
Sadly, the quarterfinals were drama-less, and if The Golf Channel-NBC want people to tune in this afternoon, and even Sunday, they're going to need close matches.
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