Marana: The snow is gone from the Match Play Championship, and so are Rory McIlroy and Tiger Woods. In a stunning conclusion to what already is a bizarre week on Dove Mountain, Shane Lowry of Ireland made a 4-foot par putt on the 18th hole to eliminate Rory McIlroy in the opening round Thursday of golf's most unpredictable tournament.
"It's definitely a day I'm going to remember," said Lowry, the third player in the last four years to beat the No. 1 seed in the opening round.
Moments later, Charles Howell III finished off a fabulous round in cold conditions by defeating Woods on the 17th hole. Howell, who had not faced Woods in match play since losing to him in the third round of the 1996 U.S. Amateur, played bogey-free on a course that still had patches of snow and ice after being cleared Thursday morning. The match was all square when Howell hit a wedge that stopped inches from the cup on the 15th hole for a conceded birdie. Then, he holed a 25-foot birdie putt on the 16th and went 2 up when Woods badly missed a 12-foot birdie putt.
"I had nothing to lose," said Howell, who started the year outside the top 100 in the world and hasn't qualified for this World Golf Championship in five years. "In this format, match play is crazy. He's Tiger Woods. I was lucky to hang in there."
The final matches were played in near darkness, and they could have stopped after 15 holes. Woods wanted to play on, even though Howell had the momentum. Woods was 2 under for the day, and neither of them made a bogey.
"We both played well," Woods said. "He made a couple of more birdies than I did. He played well, and he's advancing."
McIlroy, the No. 1 player in the world, built a 2-up lead early in the match until Lowry rallied and grabbed the moment by chipping in for birdie on the par-3 12th and then ripping a fairway metal to within a few feet for a conceded eagle on the 13th. Lowry missed a short par putt on the 14th, only for McIlroy to give away the next hole with a tee shot into the desert and a bunker shot that flew over the 15th green and into a cactus. But the two-time major champion hung tough, coming up with a clutch birdie on the 16th to stay in the game.
McIlroy nearly holed his bunker on the 18th, and Lowry followed with a steady shot out to 4 feet and calmly sank the putt.
"Deep down, I knew I could beat him," Lowry said. "There's a reason I'm here, and this is match play."
For McIlroy, more questions are sure to follow him to Florida for his road to the Masters. He now has played only 54 holes in the first two months of the season, missing the cut in Abu Dhabi and losing in the first round at Dove Mountain.
"You want to try and get as far as you can, but I guess that's match play," McIlroy said. "I probably would have lost by more if I had played someone else in the field. It wasn't a great quality match. But it would have been nice to get through and just get another day here and another competitive round under my belt."
Just like that, the Match Play Championship lost its two biggest stars in one day. The only other time the top two seeds lost in the opening round was in 2002, when Woods and Phil Mickelson lost at La Costa. Luke Donald nearly made it the top three seeds except for a clutch performance. He holed a 10-foot birdie putt to halve the 17th hole and stay tied with Marcel Siem of Germany. Donald then birdied the 18th from 7 feet to win the match.
Louis Oosthuizen, the No. 4 seed, rallied to get past Richie Ramsay of Scotland. The opening round was halted Wednesday after 3½ hours because of a freak snowstorm that covered Dove Mountain with nearly 2 inches. It continued to snow at times overnight, and it took nearly five hours to clear snow from the golf course for the tournament to resume. Turns out snow wasn't the only surprise.
Howell said he has never beaten Woods - not as an amateur, not even in dozens of games at Isleworth before Woods moved away to south Florida. What a time to change that losing streak.
"I had to play extremely well to have a chance, and I still kept waiting for that Tiger moment," Howell said.
It never came. Woods missed short birdie chances at the 10th and 11th, but the real damage came on the 15th when he went long of the green with a wedge in hand. Howell also missed a pair of short putts on the back nine, but he came up big with the putt on the 16th.
"Really, I didn't even realize I was 2 up with two to go until I got right to the tee on 17, and it actually threw me for a bit because I never maybe was really in the moment and didn't quite realize how things were," Howell said. "And as far as beating Tiger Woods, it shows you that match play is crazy. I did have to play a good round. But yeah, it's a bit hard to believe I'm sitting here today."
Howell and Lowry will have to wait until Friday to find out their opponents. Carl Pettersson was 1 up on Rickie Fowler through 17 holes when they stopped because of darkness. The winner gets Lowry, who will be fighting some history. Of the previous three players to beat the No. 1 seed in the opening round, all of them lost in the second round.
Howell gets either Gonzalo Fernandez-Castano or Francesco Molinari, who were all square through 15 holes.
In other matches: Ernie Els lost in the opening round for the sixth time. He missed a 3-foot par putt on the 16th hole that would have given him the lead, and he missed a 5-foot par putt on the 18th hole to lose to Fredrik Jacobson.
Russell Henley, two months into his rookie season, defeated the hottest player in the field when he took down Charl Schwartzel, who had won twice and finished no worse than fifth in his last six tournaments worldwide.
Rafael Cabrera Bello beat Lee Westwood in 19 holes after Westwood missed a 6-foot par putt on the last hole. The opening round of the Match Play is typically the best day in golf. This one took two days, and it was unlike any other. Nearly 2 inches of snow covered Dove Mountain on Wednesday, and with more snow overnight, nothing had changed when players began arriving Thursday morning. There already was a two-hour delay when they arrived.
"There was a guy building a snowman this morning at 8, and they said they were going off at 10:30," Henley said. "I figured it was going to be awhile"
No one had an easier day than Bo Van Pelt. Having won six straight holes to go 5 up before snow suspended play on Wednesday, Van Pelt finally got back on the golf course and struck all of two shots - an 8-iron and a 45-foot putt. He won the 13th hole with a par to complete a 6-and-5 win over John Senden of Australia.
And then there was Sergio Garcia. He was one putt away from winning when play stopped Wednesday. He three-putted from 12 feet to lose the hole, and on the 18th hole, Thongchai Jaidee made a 6-foot birdie to send the match into overtime. On the first extra hole, Garcia removed his cap and was putting his golf ball and tees in the bag as Jaidee settled over a 10-foot birdie. The putt ran around the back edge of the cup, giving Garcia life. He made birdie on the par-5 second hole to win in 20 holes. So instead of hitting one shot Thursday, he had to play 19 of them. Garcia's was the first match of the tournament. It took him about 30 hours to finish.
"It's weirdness, I guess," Garcia said. "I guess at the end of the day, I was pleased to get through." That's one thing McIlroy and Woods can't say.
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