Match It!

Tomorrow's Accenture Championship will be the first match play tournament I've seen. From what I hear, I'm really looking forward to seeing some exciting playing. My friend (and partner @ GolfAlong.com), Michael Huh, sent me a link to GolfWeek's Match Play Challenge bracket. If you haven't seen it, you should check it out. In the course of entering my picks, I was forced to research practically everyone on it so I could at least make semi-educated choices. A lot of the names were unknown to me. Most of the golfers that I'm familiar with are names I've heard over the past few weeks. So I apologize in advance if I happen to have no clue who this golfer or that golfer is. I am still learning :)

I won't go over the entire bracket - that would take too long and would only highlight my ignorance of this great game. Here are a couple of my key picks:

This Ain't Your Grandpa's Golf Game

Oh. My. God. That's the only way to describe Sunday's insane climax of the Northern Trust Open. To my uneducated eyes (this was only the third golf tournament I've ever watched), it seemed like Keegan Bradley and Phil Mickelson were playing neck and neck, and then came Bill Haas. With the difficulties Mickelson was having with his putting, and Bradley stinkeye-ing (and spitting!) his way through a few bunker shots, it really looked like Haas was going to take it free and clear.

Then, like the sun opening through the clouds, Mickelson drained a 26-foot putt. Bradley followed it up with a 13-foot putt of his own. The crowd went nuts (one fan got so excited that he barrel rolled across the grass) and then it was ON - a three way playoff for the win.

Who knew that there was overtime in golf? I sure didn't. This was COOL! I don't think I got this excited over the Superbowl. THIS is the sort of thing that non-golfers need to see. Golf is cool, it's dramatic, and at times it's even edge-of-your-seat exciting.