Third seed Rory McIlroy is staring at a semi-final showdown with World No. 1 and defending champ Scottie Scheffler should both players win their earlier series of matches in Wednesday’s start to the final hosting of the WGC – Dell Match-Play in Austin, Texas.
McIlroy has been initially drawn to play fellow PGA Championship winner Keegan Bradley, the 20th seed ahead of facing Danny McCarthy the No. 48 seed and a third American and No. 52 seeded Scott Stallings.
It will be Stallings who McIlroy faces first at 2.50pm on Wednesday in the $20m event being dropped from next year’s schedule after the host Austin Country Club allegedly sought more funding in again giving up their club for week to the Tour, and with the Tour also allegedly dropping the club like a hot potato.
Scottie Scheffler and Rory McIlroy staring at WGC – Dell Match-Play showdwon in the semi-final of this week’s event in Texas, should both players win through to the last eight in Austin.
Should McIlroy win his group matches, he then seeks to make it to the last 16, and if successful it is a semi-final showdown on Saturday against Scheffler, should he win also his opening series of matches.
The match-play is one event that McIlroy has not won, coming the closest in 2012 after losing to Hunter Mahan in the final, and when the event was held in Arizona.
Shane Lowry kick starts his quest to win Stateside in over seven-years starting 11.29am when he takes on 27-old American Taylor Montgomerie, seeded No. 47 among the 64 starters.
Also, in Lowry’s group is triple major winning Jordan Spieth with the match-play’s 12th seed coming off a share of third in last Sunday’s concluding Valspar Championship.
A year ago, Lowry went into his third qualifying match having won one and losing another ahead of facing Brooks Koepka, who had won both earlier matches and made it three wins in a close struggle with the Offaly golfer.
The fourth member in Lowry’s group this year is Canadian McKenzie Hughes, who captured the opening event of the 2022/23 wraparound PGA Tour season.
Seamus Power, who narrowly lost out a year ago to eventual 2022 champion Scheffler faces Aussie Adam Scott in his opening match at 11.43am.
Power is the No. 30 seed and three higher than Scott, with American and four-time Tour champ Sam Burns the top seed in the group at No. 13, and with Canadian Adam Hadley at No. 53 making-up the group.
Scheffler, of course, is No. 1 seed and with Aussie Cam Davis the lowest ranked seed at No. 64, and with officials ruling out as many as eight LIV Golfers who were currently inside the top-64 on the World Rankings from entering.
Their absence and with two players, in Justin Thomas and Justin Rose, declining to travel to the Texas capital, sees Davis at the current World No. 79 as the last man into the event.
