Donald hurries into second round in Tucson

Luke Donald booked his place in the second round of the WGC-Accenture Match Play Championship before Tiger Woods and Lee Westwood had even hit a shot in Tucson today.

After a 30-minute delay for frost, Donald, one of the stars of Europe’s Ryder Cup win last October, thrashed American Charley Hoffman by a 6&5 margin.

It threatened to be an even bigger hammering when the 33-year-old Englishman, seeded ninth in the 64-strong field, took seven of the first 10 holes.

Hoffman, a winner of one of the FedEx Cup play-off events last season, covered that stretch in a wretched six over par and even though he won the long 11th, he was probably already resigned to defeat at that point.

And, sure enough, Donald halved the next two to reach the last 32.

“Charley was not on his A-game,” he said. “I was probably three or four under and I’ll take the win, but it was not too hard fortunately.”

Defending champion Ian Poulter was in the opening game of the day and with one to play was all square with former Open champion Stewart Cink.

Poulter, shocked to be given a 7.25am tee-off time given he is the holder of the title, was two up after a superb approach to three feet on the 403-yard par four 10th.

But Cink, a quarter-finalist last year, a semi-finalist in 2009 and the losing finalist to Woods the season before that, showed his fighting qualities again.

After making putts from 10 and 12 feet to salvage halves on the 11th and 12th, he won the next thanks to a 18-footer, then levelled with a par four on the 17th despite visiting two bunkers.

Poulter was short in two, left his chip 12 feet short and missed, while Cink splashed out to nine feet and made it.

Northern Ireland’s Graeme McDowell, seeded fifth but beaten by Donald on the opening day last year, was well on his way to victory at four up after 10 against American Heath Slocum.

Compatriot Rory McIlroy chipped in for eagle at the 393-yard fourth to go one up on American Jonathan Byrd, winner of the PGA Tour’s opening event this season.

England’s Ross Fisher, winner of the other World Match Play title in Spain two years ago, turned two up on Australian Robert Allenby and in another Ashes battle, last year’s runner-up Paul Casey stood one up on left-hander Richard Green with eight to play.

Scot Martin Laird, making his debut in the event, went from two up after six to trail Italian Edoardo Molinari by the same margin after 11.

Woods and top seed Westwood were among the later starters, Woods against Dane Thomas Bjorn and Westwood against 2007 winner Henrik Stenson, a replacement for Japan’s Toru Taniguchi.