Sport
WGC-Dell Match Play preview: Niemann might be the Ancer in Texas
We’ve got a different format on the PGA Tour this week as Austin Country Club in Texas hosts the WGC-Dell Match Play. The top 64 in the world rankings are invited to play the five-day event and the majority are in attendance, with only Cameron Smith, Rory McIlroy, Hideki Matsuyama, Harris English, Cameron Smith and Phil Mickelson not taking part.
With the change in format this is a particularly hard event to call and as we know with match play, supposed favourites can come unstuck very easily, so don’t be afraid to look for outsiders this week.
Before picking out our outright selections, here’s a short introduction on the format.
Tournament format
The 64-strong field is divided into 16 groups of four and over the first three days, will play an 18-hole match against each of the other members of their group.
Matches during this section of the tournament can be halved and, on Friday evening, the 16 group winners go forward to the weekend to contest the knock-out clashes. If two or more players finish tied top of any group, they will take part in a sudden-death shoot-out to decide who qualifies for the last 16.
These last 16 games take place on Saturday morning, followed by the quarterfinals in the afternoon.
Semi-finals and final are staged on Sunday, along with a third-place play-off match.
In-form Chilean worth chancing
As mentioned this is one of the hardest tournaments to call of the entire season. Match play has a funny habit of throwing up several unexpected results and this tournament has been rife for them over the years. Form quite often goes out the window here as well and the two previous winners are evidence of that, with last year’s champion Billy Horschel coming in off a missed cut and a tie for 58th, while 2019 champion, Kevin Kisner, hadn’t finished inside the top 10 all year. The former had little course form too, though Kisner had finished runner-up the previous year so playing well here has helped.
Joaquin Niemann didn’t get out of the group on his first appearance in the tournament last year, but he was perhaps unlucky not to given he didn’t actually lose any of his three matches. He tied with both Christiaan Bezuidenhout and Bubba Watson before thumping Patrick Reed and he was only knocked out after being beaten by Watson on the second hole of a sudden-death playoff.
That showed he plays well in this format and while he only picked up half a point during the President’s Cup in Australia, he played much better than the bare results suggested. He also took on some of the best players in the American side and more than held his own which surely would have given him great confidence.
He also arrives at Austin this year as a significantly better player than 12 months ago having won the Genesis Invitational in impressive fashion last month, while he played pretty well at the Players Championship as well. He looks a solid contender in Texas this week at 33/1.
Mexican looks made for match play
Another South American looks of interest this week in Abraham Ancer at 50/1. By his own standards, the Mexican hasn’t been at his best this year with no top 25 finishes, but this new format might just spark him into life. Like Niemann, Ancer was unlucky not to qualify 12 months ago as he jointly topped the group with Kevin Streelman only to be defeated by his American rival in a sudden-death playoff.
That solid run was further evidence that this is a player that thrives in a match play environment having been a huge success as a rookie during the 2019 President’s Cup. He notched up 3.5 points during that tournament – the joint most of either side – and although beaten by Tiger Woods 3&2 in the opening match of the Sunday singles, more than held his own.
He hadn’t won on the PGA Tour then, but now he’s got that monkey of his back he’s a much better player and is more than comfortable taking on the world’s leading players. Interestingly that win came in another World Golf Championship – the WGC FedEx St Jude Invitational – so he knows what is needed to get it done in these elite field events and he might just surprise a few again here.
