McIlroy top of the world at Match Play C’ship

SAN FRANCISCO — Rory McIlroy had to work harder than ever to win the Match Play Championship.

No one ever had to play seven matches in five days, and McIlroy won them all in the new round-robin format. He had to beat three players on the same day, a first in the 17 years of this tournament. And three times, he stood on the 17th tee trailing.

McIlroy did not need a comeback in the final on Sunday. He won four straight holes on the front nine against an errant Gary Woodland, survived a brief scare and wound up with a 4&2 victory for his second World Golf Championship.

Three weeks after Jordan Spieth won the Masters and emerged as the most likely rival, McIlroy reminded the world of his No 1 ranking.

The Northern Irishman, who turned 26 yesterday, became the first No 1 seed since Tiger Woods in 2008 to win the most unpredictable event in golf and collect his 10th PGA Tour title. He joined Woods (29) and Jack Nicklaus (17) as the only players with at least 10 PGA Tour victories at age 25 or younger.

“Every time I have a win, I keep hearing those guys’ names come up,’’ said McIlroy. “It’s great to be mentioned with the likes of Tiger and Jack, the two greatest players that I think have every played this game. I’m on my journey. I’ll see where I get to.”

It was quite a journey at TPC Harding Park. In the semi-finals against hard-nosed Jim Furyk, McIlroy was 1 down when he closed birdie-birdie-eagle for a 1-up win. He squared the match with a 7-iron to 4 feet and closed out Furyk with a 45-foot eagle putt across the 18th green.

After a scrappy start by Woodland and McIlroy in the final, the American began missing fairways and McIlroy took advantage. He won four straight holes, three of them with birdies, to build a 4-up lead. That was the margin until McIlroy began making a few mistakes of his own.

He made bogey on No 11, failed to make birdie on the reachable par-4 12th, and his indifferent chip left of the 13th green led to another bogey. Woodland had a 4-foot par putt to reach 1 down with plenty of golf course left, but ran it over the edge to shift the momentum back to his opponent.

McIlroy won the 14th with a par when Woodland three-putted to miss the birdie. And he closed out the match when Woodland blasted out of a bunker and over the 16th green, missing the next shot.

Said Woodland: “If you have your bad round, you’ve got to hope the guy you’re playing with has a bad round, as well. But when you’re playing the No 1 player ... you can’t have a bad round.”

The Match Play Championship featured a new format this year to keep more top players in the field for at least three days. McIlroy was 3-0 in the round-robin format, and wound up winning all seven matches to pick up the US$1.57 million (S$2.09 million) prize. AP