Golf:Graeme McDowell has still to make the quarter-finals of the WGC-Accenture Match Play for the first time after losing to Korean YE Yang in Tucson today. The US Open champion had come from behind in his first two games and threatened to do the same when he took the ninth and 10th to level.
But Yang, the player who beat Tiger Woods head-to-head in the 2009 US PGA Championship, went away from him again and clinched a 3&2 victory with a chip-in birdie at the 16th.
Yang will play Matt Kuchar next and another home player through is left-hander Bubba Watson. Kuchar beat Rickie Fowler 2&1, while Watson thrashed twice winner Geoff Ogilvy 6&4.
Luke Donald’s bid to keep the trophy in European hands, meanwhile, remains on course as he defeated rising star Matteo Manassero 3&2. The 17-year-old Italian is the youngest player ever to compete in the event and was on a real high after knocking out Steve Stricker and Charl Schwartzel.
But the 2009 British amateur champion, already a European Tour winner in his nine-month-old professional career, found Donald a much tougher proposition. Manassero could not match the 33-year-old’s birdies at the first and fourth, bogeyed the next and then saw his opponent fire in his approach to three feet at the seventh.
Ninth seed Donald did lose the long eighth, but his response was immediate, a 20-footer for another birdie at the next and then a par on the 10th taking him five up.
Manassero, however, chipped in for eagle at the 13th when the match was in danger of ending there. But Donald hit back on the 15th and forced a half on the next to seal the match.
Most one-sided game of the day was that involving 47-year-old Spaniard Miguel Angel Jimenez, who turned the tables on Ben Crane with a 7&6 win a day after the American had crushed Rory McIlroy 8&7.
Martin Kaymer, who needs to reach Sunday’s final to replace Lee Westwood at the top of the rankings, was all-square after with Hunter Mahan after 14.
Because of a bad weather forecast for Sunday — snow even — the schedule for the event has been changed so that both the quarter-finals and semi-finals will now be played tomorrow.
The quarter-finals will start at 7.10am local time (2.10pm Irish time) and the semis at 11.45am (6.45pm Irish time). The final — 18 holes for the first time this year — will then tee off at 12.15pm Sunday (7.15pm Irish time). The semi-finals could well be affected if the predicted 25-35mph winds arrive, and showers are expected during Saturday night as the temperatures drop.
