The withdrawal of current World No. 17, Phil Mickelson and World No. 24, Paul Casey will see next fortnight’s WGC – Accenture Match Play Championship go down to the top-66 on the world rankings.

Mickelson simply has declined to contest the Arizona event while Casey suffered an injury while snow-boarding that will see the Englishman sidelined for some time. 

There has been no word from Casey since his injury and it can only be presumed he will not be competing.

At this stage, it would mean American Charles Howell 111 at 66^th in the world be the last to qualify. 

Charles Howell 111 in danger of missing out on qualifying for Accenture Match-Play Championship.

However Howell 111 has done his chances little good by electing not to contest this week’s AT & T Pebble Beach Pro-Am. 

He dropped three places in finishing in a share of 33^rd place in last Sunday’s concluding event in Phoenix and can be expected to drop further by not competing in California. 

As well,  World No. 62 Ernie Els, and a three-time Dubai Desert Classic winner, has elected not to tee-up on the Emirates Course this week that could see the South African drop out of the Arizona qualifying zone.

The absence of Howell 111 and Els from the fairways this week increases the likelihood of players such as Holland’s Joost Luiten (67^th), South African Rory Sabbatini (68^th), Belgium’s big-hitting Nicolas Colsaerts (69^th) and Sweden’s Alex Noren (71^st) who are each competing this week to go ahead of Howell 111.

Also sitting out the Pebble Beach and no doubt to be monitoring scores closely is Australia’s Robert Allenby currently ranked 64^th.

Allenby has contested event Match-Play event since 2001 reaching the last eight in 2005.

And suggestions American Jim Furyk, ranked 59^th in the world, is on the ‘bubble’ for qualification would seem off target given he’s seven spots away from Sunday’s cut-off mark.

And in a change for this year’s $US 8.5m event, the draw for the Match-Play will not be made until the Monday before the event and after the World Rankings have been adjusted the day before, namely Sunday February 19^th.

“The format change was implemented so that a player’s most current Official World Ranking position is reflected in the 2012 Accenture Match Play Championship bracket,” said Andy Pazder, executive vice-president and chief of operation for the PGA Tour.

“We want the No. 1 seed in each bracket to reflect the current top-four players in the Official World Rankings, setting up the best chance for No. 1 and No. 2 in the world to meet in the finals.”

At this stage World No. 1 and defending Match-Play champion, Luke Donald will be playing Howell 111 and Tiger Woods, a three-time former event winner (2003, 2004 & 2008), would be facing Spain’s in-form Gonzalo Fernandez-Castano.