The 64 players who started out the WGC Dell Match Play have been whittled down to 61 after three withdrawals since the tournament has begun and on Friday 61 will become 16 as the group stage finishes and will present us with the identity of the 16 men who will head into the knockout phase of the tournament over the weekend.
We already know there will be no Jason Day, Rory McIlroy, Hideki Matsuyama, Patrick Reed, Danny Willett or Matt Kuchar in the knockout stages and a host of other high profile names will be fighting to remain in the tournament.
Tee times have been moved forward for Friday due to inclement weather later in the day but all 29 matches have been priced up with the pick of them on paper the ones between Ryder Cup teammates Dustin Johnson and Jimmy Walker, Sergio Garcia and Jon Rahm and Hideki Matsuyama and Louis Oosthuizen.
Once again I’m going with three bets on Friday where we can hopefully gouge out a few more quid from the bookmakers before we go into the weekend.
Kevin Na vs Chris Wood
Match tees off at 13.03 GMT.
Kevin Na has already won both of his matches but he needs something out of this one to guarantee his progress. He takes on a Chris Wood who knows the flight home will be awaiting him after the match after he has lost both matches so far. Amazingly given the tough conditions on Thursday, Na was bogey free for the holes he played. In fact the only bogey he has made was when he was closing out his opening win and had two putts for it which is phenomenal golf. A repeat of that should be enough to take care of Wood.
Paul Casey vs Charl Schwartzel
Match tees off at 15.26 GMT.
Knockout golf officially begins on Saturday in this tournament but for these two it comes a day early as the winner of this match will progress and the loser will be eliminated after both won their opening two matches. Both men have won both matches so far but I wouldn’t say either has played his best golf but I wasn’t all that impressed with Schwartzel’s interview after his win in his second match. He seemed very against match play and I think you have to embrace the format to be successful in it. Paul Casey certainly does that and loves nothing more than man on man combat and I think he has to be backed to see off the hit and miss South African.
Martin Kaymer vs Webb Simpson
Match tees off at 18.11 GMT.
After a win and a loss Martin Kaymer heads into this match knowing he has to win and hope Dustin Johnson loses to get into a playoff but that isn’t beyond all possibility so I expect the German to be bang on it here. I would imagine he will look to come out fast and get the pressure on Johnson and with Webb Simpson already out of the tournament there might not be much motivation for a response. Kaymer was only beaten by Johnson’s length on Thursday but Simpson doesn’t have that advantage on him. I expect the German to win this whether it is enough to qualify or not.
Tips
Back K.Na to beat C.Wood for a 4/10 stake at 1.91 with Betfred
WON – Back M.Kaymer to beat W.Simpson for a 4/10 stake at 1.95 with Betfred
Back them here:
WON – Back P.Casey to beat C.Schwartzel for a 4/10 stake at 2.00 with Paddy Power
Back him here:
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