The Accenture continues to be less and less relevant
When news hit on Wednesday that Tiger Woods would be holding a press conference on Friday at 11 AM ET, we all knew that the Accenture Match Play, the actual golf event taking place at the time, would lose some appeal in the golf world. The problem is, the golfers playing this week have done everything possible to make it as unimportant as possible.
Just two days into the Accenture, all the top seeds are out, including Steve Stricker, Jim Furyk, Martin Kaymer and Lee Westwood. You're probably thinking to yourself, "Okay, but that isn't a huge hit. Two popular Americans and then two decent draws from Europe." Along with those four, Geoff Ogilvy is out. So is Anthony Kim, Padraig Harrington, Ernie Els, Rory McIlroy, Zach Johnson and a list of other names that might make this tournament must-see television come the weekend.
To be honest, the Accenture currently has two hopeful storylines they could bank on coming out of the Tiger presser -- Ryo Ishikawa, who at 18 is still searching for that first PGA Tour victory, actually winning an event of this magnitude. If he continues to play well, this could become a serious golf story on Sunday.
The only other one that would be helpful to the actual PGA Tour (you know, the guys that play golf and try to make paychecks and don't hold fake press conferences) is if Sergio Garcia kept winning and picked up his first trophy since that playoff victory in 2008 at the Players.
Other than that, this thing is heading towards "bad match play television," which seems to happen every few years. Match play is great when the final two are Phil Mickelson versus Tiger. You lose when it is Jeev Milkha Singh versus Ben Crane.
