Tiger Woods moves into the second round of Accenture Match Play Championship - Golf News
Former number one and 14-time major winner, Tiger Woods, moved into the second round of the World Golf Championship – Accenture Match Play Championship after beating Spaniard Gonzalo Fernandez-Castano in the opening round on Wednesday, February 22, 2012.
Castano went up in the lead when he carded two consecutive birdies to open his round. However, he failed to hold on to his lead as Woods captured three points on the next six holes of the game.
The round saw another twist when Castano benefitted from a double bogey and bogey shots made by Woods on the 10th and 11th to go 1-up.
However, Woods appeared to be in a comfortable position after he clinched two points on the 15th and 16th to land a1-up lead that remained till the end of the match.
“We had some big (momentum) swings,” said Woods, who was eliminated in the first round last year. “I'm very fortunate to move on”.
He will now face Nick Watney, a number four seeded player in the tournament, who is looking to perform better to move further in the event.
For that purpose, Tiger will have to think critically about his putting because he did not play well in the opening round.
If his bad form in putting continues, it will become difficult for him to win a single match in the relatively difficult rounds.
“I hit a couple of bad putts but I had a hard time reading these greens,” Woods said. “The grain on the greens isn't matching up with the valley”.
“I talked myself out of two or three putts where if I had gone with my first instinct I would have made it,” he added.
The golf experts believe that it was not Woods who won the opening match. In fact, it was Castano who handed over the victory to his opponent.
"If there was one day to beat Tiger Woods, this was it," Castano lamented. "I didn't take the opportunity".
The opening round of the event witnessed some other huge upsets, such as the lowest-ranked player in the tournament, Ernie Els, outclassed the top seeded Luke Donald. Likewise, number two seed, Webb Simpson lost to Matteo Manassero, who was a 15th
seeded player.
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