WGC- Cadillac Pre Tournament Notes

Dates: April 27-May 3
Where: TPC Harding Park, San Francisco, CA
Par/Yards: 36-35=71/7,127
Field: Top 64 from the Official World Golf Ranking (OWGR) as of April 20, 2015
Format: Match play (hole-by-hole competition)
Defending Champion: Jason Day (Australia)
Purse: $9,250,000; Winner’s Share: $1.57 million

New group format and seeding process explanation

• The field was finalized on Monday, April 20, but the seeding for the tournament is based off the most recent Official World Golf Ranking, released Sunday, April 26, following the conclusion of the Zurich Classic of New Orleans, to ensure the field reflects the most recent OWGR to more accurately seed the players.
• The 64-player Cadillac Match Play field will be divided into 16 four-player groups. Each group will play round-robin matches within their group on Wednesday, Thursday and Friday.
• The player with the best record in each of the four player groups advances to the Round of 16 for single-elimination match play (in the event of a two-way tie in a group,
  head-to-head match results will be used as the tiebreaker; a three-way tie will require a sudden-death stroke play holeby-hole-playoff).
• The Round of 16 will be played Saturday morning, followed by the Quarterfinals on Saturday afternoon.
• The Semifinals will be Sunday morning, followed by the Championship Match and Consolation Match on Sunday afternoon.
• With this format change, fans are guaranteed to see the field in its entirety during the first three days of competition before players begin being eliminated.
• The top seed for each of the 16 four-player groups will be the top 16 players in order of their position in the Official World Golf Ranking. However, on Monday, April 27, at 12 p.m. ET, the remaining three players in each group will be determined by a blind draw from each of three pools depending on their standing in the OWGR. Under the guidance of the PGA TOUR
  Competitions Officials, the drawings will be from Golf Channel’s Golf Central studio in Orlando as part of a live telecast. With the new format in place, the three remaining pools will be as follows:
  • Pool 1 – Players seeded 17-32
  • Pool 2 – Players seeded 33-48
  • Pool 3 – Players seeded 49-64

How the Cadillac Match Play was won by Jason Day in 2014

• It took Jason Day 23 holes in a final match that included two miracle shots by France’s Victor Dubuisson out of the cacti to save pars, but Day was able to win his first World Golf Championships event.
• At 26 years, 3 months, 11 days old, Day became the youngest winner of the Cadillac Match Play (Previously: 2003, Tiger Woods – 27 years, 2 months, 2 days).
  Day’s path to victory:
  • R1 – defeated Thorbjorn Olesen (No. 57), 2 up
  • R2 – defeated Billy Horschel (No. 40), 22 holes
  • R3 – defeated George Coetzee (No. 56), 3 and 1
  • QF – defeated Louis Oosthuizen (No. 32), 2 and 1
  • SF – defeated Rickie Fowler (No. 53), 3 and 2
  • FINAL – defeated Victor Dubuisson (No. 27), 23 holes

More on Jason Day

• Day has a career record of 14-3 at the Cadillac Match Play for an 82.3 winning percentage. In his last two attempts at the Cadillac Match Play, Day has reached the semifinals each year, finishing third in 2013 after defeating Ian Poulter in the consolation match.
• Day is one of two Australians (Geoff Ogilvy) to win the Cadillac Match Play.

Rory McIlory

• Rory McIlory, who made his professional U.S. debut at the Cadillac Match Play in 2009, enters the event as the No. 1 seed for the second time in his career.
• In 2009, McIlroy was defeated by Geoff Ogilvy in the Quarterfinals, 2 and 1, to finish T5.
  • “I had to play really well. It’s the best I’ve played all week. I birdied the last three holes and only won one of them. He’s going to be a top-10 player in the world for as long as he wants,” said Ogilvy, who went on to win his second Cadillac Match Play title. “This has obviously got to be taken the right way, but my caddie on the way in the car said, if you want to be the second-best player in the world you have got to be better than Rory. That’s pretty much how both he and I would think about Rory. That’s how good he is. He’s very personable. It might take a couple years to be like that, but that’s what it’s going to be.”
• This will be McIlroy’s seventh consecutive start at the event.\Rory McIlory seeds by year –
  • 2009 16
  • 2010 5
  • 2011 7
  • 2012 2
  • 2013 1
  • 2014 4
• McIlroy reached the finals in 2012 where he lost to Hunter Mahan, 2 and 1.

Jordan Spieth

• Masters winner Jordan Spieth enters the Cadillac Match Play at No. 2 in the world, marking the first time the top two seeds have both been 25 or younger entering the event. In his first appearance at the Cadillac Match Play last year, Spieth won his first three matches before losing to Ernie Els in the quarterfinals.
• Jordan Spieth (3-1)
  • 2014 R1: beat Pablo Larrazabal, 2-up
  • R2: beat Thomas Bjorn, 5 and 4
  • R3: beat Matt Kuchar, 2 and 1
  • QF: lost to Ernie Els, 4 and 2
• After a stellar offseason in which Spieth won in Australia and at the Hero World Challenge, he has finished in the top 20 in nine of his last 10 events, including seven top-10 finishes, two runner-ups and victories at the Valspar Championship and the Masters Tournament.
• Spieth is No. 1 in the FedExCup standings.
• At 21 years, 9 months and 6 days (on Sunday of tournament week), Spieth could become the youngest-ever winner of a World Golf Championships even.
  • Youngest winners of World Golf Championships events:
    • Tiger Woods, Bridgestone Invitational, 1999–23 years, 7 months, 30 days
    • Tiger Woods, Cadillac Championship, 1999–23 years, 10 months, 8 days
    • Tiger Woods, Bridgestone Invitational, 2000–24 years, 7 months, 28 days
    • Tiger Woods, Bridgestone Invitational, 2001–25 years, 7 months, 27 days
    • Jason Day, Cadillac Match Play, 2014 –26 years, 1 month, 28 days

Additional field notes

• Luke Donald and Tim Clark are not in the Cadillac Match Play field. Donald is attending his brother’s wedding while Clark is recovering from a wrist injury. They are replaced in the field by No. 65 Miguel Angel Jimenez and No. 66 Francesco Molinari.
• There are 11 players making their first-career Cadillac Match Play start. They are Matt Every (USA), Tommy Fleetwood (ENG), Matt Jones (AUS), Brooks Koepka (USA), Anirban Lahiri (IND), Alexander Levy (FRA), Ben Martin (USA), Andy Sullivan (ENG), Brendon Todd (USA), Marc Warren (SCO) and Danny Willett (ENG).
• Of that list, Ben Martin and Andy Sullivan are making their World Golf Championships debut.
• England’s Lee Westwood has the most World Golf Championships starts (51, including the Cadillac Match Play)
•  Jordan Spieth was born one year after Miguel Angel Jimenez’s first European Tour victory in 1992.

Golf’s Global Summit

• A total of 34 international players are among the field of 64, representing 17 countries (not including the United States).\
• England leads the way with seven players. Remaining countries and players are Australia (5), South Africa (4), Spain (2), France (2), Northern Ireland (2), Scotland (2), Austria, Germany, India, Ireland, Italy, Japan, Netherlands, Sweden, Thailand and Wales.

TPC Harding Park

• TPC Harding Park began hosting major amateur tournaments soon after opening, most notably, the USGA National Public Links Championship, and the San Francisco City Championship, the oldest consecutively played competition in the world.
• In 1944, the course began hosting PGA TOUR tournaments with the Victory Open. Shortly after, the course established itself as one of the top golf courses on the West Coast; where it became a regular stop for PGA TOUR events up until the end of the decade, when budgetary cuts caused the course to fall into poor conditions. The course further deteriorated, reaching its lowest point in 1998, when it was used as a parking lot during the U.S. Open at Olympic Club.
• At the turn of the century was thus born the roller coaster known as the renovation of Harding Park. In an effort to restore Harding Park to its former glory, Frank “Sandy” Tatum, a respected lawyer, accomplished golfer, and former USGA President, rallied together local businesses and political leaders, the USGA, the San Francisco Recreation and Park, and the PGA TOUR’s Tim Finchem.
• Tatum played his game right, thoughtfully utilizing his resources and strategically holding a tournament there to quickly pump some serious cash into the local economy. Finchem supported the idea of reestablishing a presence in the Bay Area market, and also entertained the idea of playing high-profile tournament at a truly public course.
• Combined efforts resulted in a $16 million restoration in 2002-2003 featuring a complete re-design to the course. The result was a highly acclaimed championship course that maintains the character and integrity of the original layout, but incorporates design elements and infrastructure to accommodate today’s players.
• The 15-month project to expand the course from 6,743 yards to nearly 7,200 yards in length, enhancing the driving range, clubhouse and restaurant, upgrading the nine-hole layout of Fleming and later establishing The First Tee of San Francisco in 2004, a unique youth development program that uses golf to teach students life skills and values. TPC Harding Park Golf Course officially reopened August 22, 2003.
• Since its recent renovations, TPC Harding Park is championship-worthy once again, hosting several PGA TOUR events such as, the 2005 World Golf Championships-Cadillac Championship, The Presidents Cup 2009, the Charles Schwab Cup Championship in 2010, 2011 and 2013, as well as this week’s World Golf Championships-Cadillac Match Play.
• The PGA of America, the PGA TOUR and the City and County of San Francisco announced a partnership last year that pledged to bring the 2020 PGA Championship and The Presidents Cup 2025 to continue the great tradition of the PGA TOUR in San Francisco.

SOURCE: PGA TOUR