Francesco Molinari is seeded in Austin, Texas, where, from Wednesday to Sunday, a gargantuan challenge between the best 64 golfers in the world takes place. Absent only Rickie Fowler and Adam Scott. In all there will be about 200 match plays, starting with an Italian group led by the world's number one Dustin Johnson. The 64 participants are in fact divided into 16 groups of four players and the top 16 in the world order of merit are seeded. Each member of the group, to qualify for the round of XNUMX, must play three match plays.
Molinari is number seven in the world and the group he leads is, to say the least, hellish. The Turinese, who scored this year in the Arnold Palmer Invitational, will in fact have to contend with three very tough bones: world number 21 Webb Simpson; the Danish Thorbjørn Olesen (45), with whom he will have to engage in a sort of fratricidal struggle after being Ryder's companions; the Japanese Satoshi Kodaira (63). The PGA website puts Francesco among the favorites and considers him a real "threat" for the Americans after his record of 5 wins out of 5 matches played in the Ryder Cup.
The European tour site celebrates it with many articles on the cover. In eight attempts in this match, however, he has never reached the quarterfinals; we'll see how he fares on this occasion. There is a lot at stake, starting with points for the Fedex ranking and for the Race to Dubai, because the WGC-Dell Technologies Match Play is the second of the four seasonal events of the World Golf Championships, a world mini-circuit whose competitions are next-level only to majors. In this type of challenge, which is particularly exciting because the players are against each other (like in tennis), nothing is taken for granted.
The golf feast is in the first three days, when each participant must play at least three games. At the end of this tour de force, only 16 players remain and elimination becomes direct. Sunday afternoon the last confrontation will be between the only two "survivors". Tiger Woods, number 13 in the world rankings, is also seeded.
The American champion will have to deal with Patrick Cantlay (18), Brandt Snedeker (44), Aaron Wise (61). The big cat has won this event three times, but that doesn't mean much, as he hasn't played this race since 2013. Apart from Tiger, the most famous group is 12. At the top is the former number one of the world Jason Day, but rivals are Phil Mickelson, Henrik Stenson and Jim Furyk, who together account for 84 tour victories.
Bubba Watson defends the title, but the list of favorites is very large. We remember, among others, Dustin Johnson, world leader and winner in 2017, Rory McIlroy, who returned to success in The Players two weeks ago, Paul Casey, who scored last Sunday in Valspar. The prize pool is 10,250 million dollars.
The match play world championship is broadcast live and exclusively on GOLFTV, Discovery's streaming platform (info www.golf.tv/it). First day: Wednesday 27 March, from 19pm to 1am. Also live on Eurosport 2 from 22,30pm.
