In years gone by the old Piccadilly World Match Play run by Mark McCormack at IMG was the premier match play event in the world, played on the Burma Road Course at Wentworth.
The only other match play was the Ryder Cup and before the European team came into being back in 1979, it was not very good match play as the States and all their big guns overwhelmed the GB & NIre teams.
So when Arnie and Jack and Trevino and Weiskopf etal came over to play alongside Player, Marsh, and Brits like Tony Jacklin and Brian Barnes, Brian Hugget, Peter Oosterhuis, Neil Coles had a shot at beating them over 18 or 36 holes, it was a magical competition.
Since those days the Ryder Cup has become 3 of the greatest days in sports, the Accenture MatchPlay in Arizona has been made a WGC ensuring attendance from the world's top 50, and the old Piccadilly, now called the Volvo has fallen on hard times.
In fact a few years ago it lost it's sponsor and folded until Volvo resurrected it and moved it to Spain to ensure good weather, now this year it is at a spectacular new venue, the Thracian Cliffs Golf and Beach Resort designed by Gary Player in Bulgaria.. (click here to view )http://www.europeantour.com/europeantour/season=2013/tournamentid=2013036/news/newsid=191535.html
It has lost it's niche, has a round robin formula that confuses most viewers, that has taken the sudden death excitement out of it, until the latter rounds at least, and the world's best are not in attendance taking away the David vs Goliath match ups that were so appealing.
It simply lacks umph !!
Here are the groups and a link to live scoring.
Seve Ballesteros Group - Graeme McDowell, Chris Wood, Stephen Gallacher
Assar Gabrielsson Group - Ian Poulter, Thongchai Jaidee, Thomas Aiken
Arnold Palmer Group - Peter Hanson, George Coetzee, Shane Lowry
Gustaf Larson Group - Bo Van Pelt, Richard Sterne, Geoff Ogilvy
Ian Woosnam Group - Branden Grace, Nicolas Colsaerts, Kiradech Aphibarnrat
Greg Norman Group - Henrik Stenson, Francesco Molinari, Felipe Aguilar
Mark McCormack Group - Thorbjorn Olesen, Carl Pettersson, Scott Jamieson
Gary Player Group - Gonzalo Fernandez-Castano, Jamie Donaldson, Brett Rumford
click here for live tee times http://www.europeantour.com/europeantour/season=2013/tournamentid=2013036/leaderboard/index.html
BryanAngus
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