The re-formatted and re-located WGC Match Play event took a hit on Sunday night when the PGA Tour announced that Phil Mickelson had backed out of it for “personal reasons.”
Phil Mickelson withdraws from WGC Cadillac Match Play, citing personal reasons
One of the headliners this week, set to appear in his first Match Play since 2011, backs out late in San Francisco.
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Mickelson has not entered the Match Play event since 2011, but was set to play this year because of all the changes, including its new spot on the schedule. As with every WGC event, the Match Play generally draws all the top names in the game because of all the cash and free world rankings points every player gets just for showing up.
But the old iteration always fell on a week of a busy West Coast swing when Mickelson took off to be with his family. The move from February to May freed him up to play it again so this withdrawal at the start of the week is definitely disappointing news from one of the headliners at TPC Harding Park. Mickelson issued a quick statement to the Tour:
“I’m really happy with the new format and TPC Harding Park is a terrific setting for match play, so it’s unfortunate that I won’t be able to play this year,” said Mickelson.
Mickelson was coming off his best tournament of the year, the T2 finish at the Masters. The 2014 season was his worst as a professional, and the first quarter of 2015 didn’t look much better. But after that work at Augusta, it was expected that this week’s Match Play and The Players next week would be his primary events before June’s U.S. Open, the white whale of his career.
Under the new rules, Mickelson slotted into the second grouping of players randomly drawn to create 16 different pools. He’s just outside the top 16 in the world rankings so he was not going to be a No. 1 seed.
The old format seeded the top 64 in the world into a standard single-elimination bracket. This year, there will be 16 different pools with four players each. There will be round robin play in each pool from Wednesday through Friday, and then a 16-man single elimination bracket on the weekend featuring each pool winner.
Each pool is led by a No. 1 seed, slotted according to the top 16 players in the world. After that, the three other players are randomly drawn from three separate rankings buckets (Nos. 17-32, 33-48, 49-64). Those four-man pools will be drawn Monday afternoon from these larger groups:
| Top Seeds For Each Pool | One of each randomly drawn from remaining 3 groups on Mon 4/27 to complete 4-man pools | ||
| Group 1 | Group 2 | Group 3 | |
| 1. Rory McIlroy | 17. Martin Kaymer | 33. Keegan Bradley | 49. Charley Hoffman |
| 2. Jordan Spieth | 18. Billy Horschel | 34. Anirban Lahiri | 50. Gary Woodland |
| 3. Henrik Stenson | 19. Brooks Koepka | 35. Brandt Snedeker | 51. Marc Warren |
| 4. Bubba Watson | 20. Kevin Na | 36. Paul Casey | 52. Alexander Levy |
| 5. Jim Furyk | 21. Victor Dubuisson | 37. Charl Schwartzel | 53. Jason Dufner |
| 6. Justin Rose | 22. Ryan Palmer | 38. Branden Grace | 54. Tommy Fleetwood |
| 7. Jason Day | 23. Bill Haas | 39. Bernd Wiesberger | 55. Harris English |
| 8. Dustin Johnson | 24. Zach Johnson | 40. Matt Every | 56. Marc Leishman |
| 9. Adam Scott | 25. Chris Kirk | 41. Stephen Gallacher | 57. Andy Sullivan |
| 10. Sergio Garcia | 26. Lee Westwood | 42. Brendon Todd | 58. Matt Jones |
| 11. Jimmy Walker | 27. Ian Poulter | 43. Joost Luiten | 59. George Coetzee |
| 12. J.B. Holmes | 28. Ryan Moore | 44. Thongchai Jaidee | 60. John Senden |
| 13. Rickie Fowler | 29. Louis Oosthuizen | 45. Russell Henley | 61. Ben Martin |
| 14. Matt Kuchar | 30. Jamie Donaldson | 46. Webb Simpson | 62. Mikko Ilonen |
| 15. Patrick Reed | 31. Hunter Mahan | 47. Shane Lowry | 63. Miguel A. Jimenez |
| 16. Hideki Matsuyama | 32. Graeme McDowell | 48. Danny Willett | 64. Francesco Molinari |
This is obviously one of the most unique events of the PGA Tour season and the only time we get to see the pros at this level in match play in a non-team setting. Tiger Woods was never going to make it thanks to his tumble down the world rankings, but having Phil back in it was a boost. Now he’s out too — here’s hoping all is well with the five-time major winner.
★★★
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