McDowell gets chance to tame Tiger

THE WITHDRAWAL of Sergio Garcia means that Ireland's Graeme McDowell will provide the first round opposition to Tiger Woods in the Accenture World Match Play Championship beginning in Carlsbad, California, on tomorrow week.

When the qualification process ended on Sunday night, McDowell was ranked 65th in the world, one spot outside of the last automatic place. However, Garcia had earlier indicated his intention to miss out on the event, so under the automatic draw system the number-one ranked Woods is scheduled to take on McDowell, 64th. One further withdrawal could change everything but as of now there are four Irishmen in the event with every reason to be pleased with how things have panned out.

"You simply can't get a tougher draw than this but I have to acknowledge that I'm very luck to be there at all and of course it will be a great thrill to take on Tiger," enthused McDowell.

"I've always been a great fan of his and I'm really looking forward to measuring my game against his at close range. Nobody will give me a chance so I'll go out there with little to lose. Still, even though my form has been short of what I would have wanted since the new season began, I like matchplay. I did well in the head to head stuff as an amateur and more recently in the Seve Trophy and the Royal Trophy. So, you never know."

McDowell will take heart from the fact that fellow Ulsterman Darren Clarke defeated Woods in the 2000 final over the same La Costa course.

Clarke has a first round engagement with reigning US Tournament Players champion Fred Funk, Padraig Harrington takes on the Japanese Shigeki Maruyama and Paul McGinley is up against Australian Mark Hensby.

Other interesting matches involve Jose-Maria Olazabal and Arron Oberholser, the five shot winner of the AT & T Pebble Beach pro-am at the weekend; a repeat of last year's semi-final in which Chris DiMarco beat Ian Poulter while Davis Love 111 meets his US Ryder Cup captain Tom Lehman.

Meanwhile, the domination of the European Tour by American golfers continues unabated. After previous wins for Chris DiMarco and Tiger Woods, Kevin Stadler maintained the momentum in the Johnnie Walker Classic in Perth at the weekend. True, there weren't too many European Ryder Cup contenders in the field (Colin Montgomerie was there but missed the cut) but Stadler became the third US champion in the four European Tour events so far this year. What appears to be a worrying trend for Ian Woosnam and his team may mean nothing at the end of the day but should serve to underline to the home side that they can take absolutely nothing for granted at The K Club next September.

Oberholser came out well on top at Pebble Beach, where Paul McGinley demonstrated his current well being with a solid performance that saw him tie for 12th with an eight under par total and pick up a cheque for $118,000 (€100,000).

McDowell missed the 54-hole cut on 216. Both men now move on to the Nissan Open at the Riviera Club near Los Angeles.

This week's tournament on the European Tour is the €1.25 million Malaysian Open. Padraig Harrington makes a welcome return after a nine-week lay-off and will immediately want to rectify a situation where he finds himself 19th in the Ryder Cup world points list and 17th in the European table.

He also wants to get another monkey off his back - and keep another out of his golf bag - when he tees it up on Thursday! He is looking to end a run of near-misses in the tournament, having been runner-up twice and finished in the top ten on two other occasions. And he will be hoping to avoid a repeat of his experience at last year's event when he fell victim to a mischievous monkey.

"I was playing a practice round with Stephen Browne on the Monday when a monkey made off with my binoculars at the eighth tee and went straight up a tree with them," he recalled.

"We could see him trying to eat them and taunting us with them. A caddie went to get them back and an hour later he caught up with us with the binoculars in his hands. The monkey had done more damage to them with his teeth than anyone could have done with a knife. Buttons were ripped off and chunks taken out of them, but luckily enough they still worked!"

Harrington went on to finish the tournament in joint eighth place, falling away with a final round 74 that left him 11 shots behind Thailand's Thongchai Jaidee, who won the event for the second year running. Jaidee is seeking a hat-trick this week when Harrington is joined in the field by three other Irishmen, Gary Murphy, Michael Hoey and David Higgins.