Brennans Caddy Report-WGC Accenture Match Play

Mike finished The Nissan Open with a great final round 66 on Sunday and his best round of the year, building momentum coming into this week in Tucson. With a lot of hard work on his new swing and his putting it was great to see some results come through with that round. The entire week was pretty good expect for a few holes but overall I think the week was a real success and you can see how Mikes game is getting better each week.  His confidence is growing each week and you can tell that he is very excited that the changes he is making are really starting to pay off as the year goes on.
 
This week is the Accenture Match Play tournament which is a very unique tournament for us on tour. It is the only PGA tour event that you play one on one with your opponent and the winner advances, loser goes home. It feels kind of weird that you can start on tournament on Wednesday and half the field is going home at the conclusion of matches Wednesday night. I really like the format although it tends to be a little unfair at times.  It's possible to play a great round of golf and lose your match whereas you can also not play very well and move on. In every other event its important to play consistently though the week so that you have a chance to win on Sunday, here all you have to do is beat the person you are playing regardless of how well you play, and just get the job done!
 
After playing at the La Costa resort for as long as I can remember for this event we are now in Tucson, Arizona for a while at a new golf course called the Gallery.  I spent a year living in Tucson in 1994 when I graduated from college and really loved my time here. The gallery is located a little outside of town on what you to be nothing but desert land, I never would have imagined such a huge facility being built so far away from everything but it is amazing how thing develop. The Gallery is a 36 hole development that is in its early stages, you can see the growth in houses and shops as you enter the property.  I have no idea where all the money is coming from to buy the million dollar places that are going up all over the course but the desert seems to be the place where everyone is going.  It seems like each week we go to different cities and the construction on new houses is amazing, beautiful houses just keep being built!
 
The key this week is going to be how the players handle the greens.  The course has some very generous fairways which you would expect for a friendly members course, but the greens are very severe.  Built amongst the cactus and desert terrain all you see is beautiful green grass and then desert brush so its important to keep the ball in the green stuff but that shouldn't be too hard as good as they guys here this week are. The course is quite long so you will see a lot of guys bombing the driver and hoping to have shorter irons in to get the ball in the greens in the proper spots.  The greens are huge and have all kinds of slopes on them, most of them with a lot of undulation.  They all have severe slopes off to the sides so approach shots that are just a little bit off with feed away from the greens and leave the guys with some difficult pitch shots back to the pin. The green in regulation stats will be very good for everyone but the key is going to be how you putt and get the ball in the hole.  As with any match play event guys tend to play a little more aggressively as one bad hole really doesn't matter all that much.
 
The tour staff that set the course up this week has done a good job in making things exciting in my opinion, they have moved the tees up on both short par 4's so that the greens will be drivable. Rather than have the players hit irons off tees and wedge the ball up  the have moved the tees up so that you can hit driver and reach the green with your drive which I love. This makes the strategy of the match come become important, if your opponent drives the ball on you may have to do the same to keep up. If your opponent hits his tee shot in the desert you may want to lay up and take your chances with a par. I really think the set up is great for the fans and will make things much more exciting.
 
I really don't think that there are any exciting holes on the course, they are all pretty similar with larger fairways and fast greens. I do think that having the Match Play format makes any course exciting so I really look forward to an exciting week. It has been a very quick week with only two days of practice so hopefully we can have a great week and make this a long week. It will be a very tough week as far as caddying goes considering you can play 7rounds in 5 days, the final match being 36 holes.  I am really looking forward to the week and am ready to get things started. I hope that I have some good news to report in my caddy log next week from Phuket, Thailand. 

For now so long and I am sure everyone will enjoy a great week of golf viewing from Tucson!

Brennan Little