Accenture Match Play 2012: Tiger Woods Loses to Nick Watney, Round 2 Recap

 It was another day of surprises, disappointments and superb play at Accenture Match Play.  Hopefully your picks were better than mine and there was no more than pride riding on them.

Nick Watney, who has been missing from leaderboards lately, battled Tiger Woods the full 18 holes until Woods missed a six-footer that would have extended the match to extra holes.   Woods said he fought blocking the putter right all day. 

Watney said he has been fighting his own idea of perfection in golf, in recent weeks, and is trying to lighten up.  

“I think it's expectations. I really want to do well. And I love to play,” he said.  “I started off the year with a pretty bad attitude, just very wound up and a very short fuse.”

Dustin Johnson, who had gotten by on chip-ins for two days, finally found his game and blew away Francesco Molinari, 5 and 4.  Maybe he’s finally finding his post surgical form. 

 “I was fortunate enough to win on the 20th hole yesterday,” Johnson said. “And that momentum kind of carried over to today. Got off to a good start and just played really solidly today.”

Steve Stricker celebrated his 45^th birthday with a victory over Louis Oosthuizen.

“I didn't even look at a leaderboard today to tell you the truth,” Stricker said. “I was just so engrossed in our match and what I needed to do, I really didn't look at the board.”

In a match where most people wanted both to win, Brandt Snedeker defeated Kyle Stanley for the second time this season.   Snedeker told pgatour.com that he and Stanley were getting some history going between the two of them. 

One 'Golf Boy won.  Hunter Mahan continued his match play success beating Y.E. Yang.

“Match play is ‑‑ you have got to be mentally strong,” Mahan said. “You have got to forget the past and move on and try to hit that next shot good. It's not about what you score, it's about how many holes you win. The more times you play, the more experience you have is a good thing.”

The other 'Golf Boy lost when Bubba Watson fell to Matt Kuchar.

In matches that ended the way they probably should have according to the world rankings, Rory McIlroy defeated Anders Hansen, Lee Westwood advanced over Robert Karlsson and Martin Kaymer overcame perennial match play contender David Toms.

The stand-in for The 'Most Interesting Man in the World, aka Miguel Angel Jimenez, surprised again with his toughness winning his first three holes and eventually taking out Keegan Bradley.   

A resurgent Paul Lawrie broke hearts in Japan by beating Ryo Ishikawa.

PGA Tour rookie Sang-moon Bae of Korea upset Masters champ Charl Schwartzel, proving that his defeat of Ian Poulter was no fluke.  Peter Hanson needed just 19 putts on the day, and that spelled the end of Ernie Els’ run in this year’s Accenture.

In the all Aussie match, John Senden pummeled Jason Day, closing out the match at the 13^th hole.   

“I said at the end of last year and this year, you know, it's about standing up there and really just looking out and just ripping it, letting it go and being a free player,” Senden explained. “Tiger Woods doesn't stand up there and just like try to steer it down the middle or Phil Mickelson, he doesn't steer it. He just gets up there with a rhythm. Mickelson, I've noticed, that he misses cuts, but he wins tournaments, as well, that same way. So I'm trying to get to that level.”

Underrated Mark Wilson, the only US player to have won three tournaments in the last 12 months, defeated another recent winner, Robert Rock.  

Martin Laird, winner at Bay Hill last year, made seven birdies to take out Italian teenager Matteo Manassero.  

“It doesn't really matter who you've got, when you've got the top 64 players in the world you've got to play good to win,” Laird said.

What will happen next?  One twitter suggestion was to start Friday and end Monday.  But you can’t fit the matches into that schedule. It would be great to slide the Thursday and Friday matches into Saturday and Sunday and play the last two rounds Monday, as in Monday afternoon and finishing up Monday evening.  The reason is that Thursday and Friday are the most fun days.  And if you like match play and have a vested interest in the players, you’ll tune in Monday night to watch the finish. Ah well, we can only hope.

At this point it is looking very much like a Kaymer versus either Westwood or McIlroy final.  But that’s getting ahead of things. For now, here are the picks for Friday’s matches:

1.  Brandt Snedeker over Peter Hanson.  It’s a pick USA choice.  I admit it. I watch the European Tour on The Golf Channel, but I don’t know enough about Peter Hanson to say he will beat a guy who just won.

2. Dustin Johnson over Mark Wilson.  OK, I’m falling into that trap of underrating Mark Wilson.  But if Dustin Johnson is actually finding his game, as he says, he just cannot be beaten.  If he hits into the desert and has to rely on an imperfect short game, Wilson trounces him.

3. Martin Kaymer over Matt Kuchar.  I like Matt Kuchar as a person, but I fear Martin Kaymer as a golfer, particularly when he’s engaged in the process. 

“It does make a difference if you stand on the tee and you know the guy you play against, he needs to play his best golf to beat me,” Kaymer said. “Mentally, I don't think that I that I'm that weak, so he has to have good golf shots to beat me.” 

4. Steve Stricker over Hunter Mahan.  Good putting trumps everything and Stricker is  the better putter.

5. Rory McIlroy over Miguel Angel Jimenez. Even The Most Interesting Man in The World will know he has met his match in McIlroy.  The kid just has too much talent to lose.

6. Sang-moon Bae over John Senden.  Every time I see his name, Sang-moon Bae, I think of Half Moon Bay, a very good California golf course in an unbeatable location, right on the ocean, south of San Francisco.  So as little as I know about Sang-moon Bae, if his game is half as good as the golf course, and a quarter as good as the location of Half Moon Bay, I’m in his corner.    

7. Lee Westwood over Nick Watney although it could go extra holes. Westwood said he’s already out of clothes but that he left agent Chubby Chandler back in Europe in an effort to change his luck in the Accenture matches.  If he’s going to that extent, he must be serious.  Westwood is really a tough guy golfer.  He will be difficult to beat.

8.  Paul Lawrie over Martin Laird.  This one, I have less confidence in, especially after being surprised by Laird’s victory at Bay Hill last year.  But Lawrie recently won in Qatar, another desert, and he’s recently rededicated himself to better play. 

Kathy Bissell is a Golf Writer for Bleacher Report. Unless otherwise noted, all quotes were obtained first-hand or from official interview materials from the USGA, PGA Tour or PGA of America.