Austin, Texas … Rory McIlroy and Jordan Spieth, and golf’s two most exciting players, were seated at the same breakfast table ahead of the quarter-final encounter matches on day four of the WGC – Dell Match Play in Austin, Texas.
But then it was not a breakfast of champions for World No. 1 Jordan Spieth who was bounced out of the $US 9.5m event following a 4 & 2 drubbing at the hands of South African Louis Oosthuizen.
“I didn’t make it very hard on Louis today, which is unfortunate,” said Spieth.
“I was off from when I hit my first ten shots on the range. The ball was slicing off, which is very odd. I’ve had incredible control of the ball this week and of my wedges. I’m not exactly sure what happened, I still don’t really know.
Rory McIlroy needs to hole this birdie putt to seal victory in his 1/4 final match against Zach Johnson.
“And it could have been something as simple as ball position or alignment. I tried to figure it out for the entire range session, but I just couldn’t grab a shot that I knew I could go to the course with.
“And on the first hole I sliced it off the tee there and kind of went from there. It was just a very off day.
“I just need more consistency on my off days if I want to be able to compete come Augusta. The good stuff is there when I have control. As long as I can hold it together four, five, six rounds in a row then we’re in good shape.
“I feel like it was a big improvement this week off of the last month. If I think about it that way we’re going to be in good shape in a couple weeks’ time and I think we’ll get in contention next week, and hopefully hold a little more consistency there come the weekend.”
McIlroy holes the putt to win an 11th straight match in the WGC – Dell Match-Play.
In contrast, it was all ‘Snap, Crackle and Pop’ for McIlroy emerging from breaking breakfast with Spieth and winning his match 1up over current Open Champion Zach Johnson.
McIlroy continues to grow in stature and dominance collecting an 11th straight win and this time over Johnson.
It was the first time any match Johnson had played all 18 holes of the Austin Country Club course and it was a point that McIlroy brought up after sealing victory in holing a three-foot birdie, and just moments after Johnson sank his birdie putt to put the pressure right on the current World No. 3.
“Once we got to the 16th I thought about that stat as he hasn’t played 18 holes in any of the round robins and he’s probably just had one look at the course on Monday,” said McIlroy.
“Obviously, I had played all 18 holes every day so that was a little bonus, if you like, to have up my sleeve.”
McIlroy’s putt drops and he now heads to a quarter-final showdown with American Chris Kirk.
