Tiger Woods and Rory McIlroy lose their respective matches
The much anticipated matchup between the world number one and two, Rory McIlroy and Tiger Woods, respectively, proved to be a dead rubber, as both of them lost their first matches.
The World Golf Finals is being played at the Antalya course. The tournament follows a medal match-play format and eight of the world’s best golfers take part in it.
Matt Kuchar gave the Northern Irishman tough a time on the course. Kuchar defeated the current PGA Champion, Rory McIlroy by a large margin of six strokes.
On the other hand, Tiger Woods lost a very closely contested match to South African, Charl Schwartzel by one shot.
In their next round, Tiger Woods will play Matt Kuchar and Rory McIlroy will face the South African. Both Tiger and Rory need to win their respective matches if they want to give themselves a decent chance of progressing to the next round.
"I need to win both of my matches tomorrow if I am to advance," McIlroy said. "I just struggled for a bit of motivation out there so I need to go out and concentrate on both of my matches tomorrow".
McIlroy had a shocker of a round, he triple bogeyed on the fifteenth and then went on to double bogey on the next two holes.
"I hit a drive into the trees on 15 and lost a bit of confidence," McIlroy said. Kuchar, on the other hand, stuck to his plan of playing a bogey free round.
Woods, however, had a cliff hanger with Schwartzel. They were tied going on to the eighteen. A little lapse in concentration for Tiger gave away the match. The former world number one hit a shot straight in the bunker and there went the match.
"It came right down to the wire but I can't believe how far that second shot flew into the back bunker and that was the match," Woods said.
"'It means now that I have to play 'Kooch' and try and win that match before facing Rory in the afternoon".
In the other group, Lee Westwood defeated Webb Simpson and Justin Rose overcame the challenge posed by Hunter Mahan.
Tags: