HUNTER MAHAN BEATS RORY McILROY IN WORLD M/PLAY FINAL

FROM THE DAILY TELEGRAPH WEBSITE

By Oliver Brown, Marana, Arizona

As dusk settled upon the Tortolita Mountains on Sunday night, Rory McIlroy stumbled with the summit in sight. After beating Lee Westwood in the semi-final Rory McIlroy missed out on the world No 1 ranking 

The 22 year-old, his adrenalin drained from winning a riveting grudge match against Lee Westwood, succumbed 2 and 1 to Hunter Mahan (pictured) in the Accenture Match Play final and let slip his shot at becoming golf’s world No 1 for the first time.

On the day he proved his status as alpha male of the British game, outwitting Westwood in a semi-final dubbed by one wag as the Gunfight at UK Corral, McIlroy could not press home his claim to being the best on the planet. Wilting in Arizona’s desert heat, the Ulsterman endured a ragged first 10 holes to fall four down to Mahan and, despite a back-nine riposte, ran out of time to erase his deficit.
The sense of missed opportunity hurt McIlroy, despite his tone of weary acceptance afterwards. Here was his moment to usurp Luke Donald as No 1, and for once this purest of ball-strikers missed the target.

Mahan, undoubtedly, was a deserving champion, having amassed 35 birdies in five days of extraordinary consistency. But there remained a gnawing sense that McIlroy, by emulating the level he displayed in dispatching Westwood, ought to have swept through the final. His back-to-back 6s at the seventh and eighth positively gifted the title to the Californian.

The mental pressures of facing Westwood had, McIlroy conceded later, made it difficult to muster the same intensity for another 18 holes. He would not dwell, though, upon his frustrated quest to depose Donald as No 1.
“Getting to the top of the rankings is hopefully inevitable,” he said.

It had been a final in which both combatants showed their fatigue. McIlroy and Mahan halved two of their first four holes in bogey 5s, before the American edged clear by arrowing his tee-shot to two feet at the short sixth.
Worse followed for McIlroy when he saw his chip at the seventh roll back to him, and by the time he recorded another 6 at the eighth after driving into a bunker, he was three down.
A miss from nine feet at the 10th extended the gap to four, which ultimately proved irretrievable. Despite a chip-in for eagle at the 11th, and a hat-trick of birdies from the 13th, Mahan’s par at the 17th settled the outcome.

How different the duel with Westwood had been — a showdown so rich in subplot that it should have been set to the strains of Ennio Morricone. And it was the audacious young gunslinger who prevailed. With a display of fearsome driving, McIlroy vanquished his elder adversary.

The 3 and 1 victory proved every bit as gratifying to the 22 year-old as it did devastating to Westwood. For theirs was more than merely a professional battle. This time, it was personal.

The pair had maintained a mutual froideur ever since their days together at Chubby Chandler’s management stable, and made no attempt to conceal it yesterday. Westwood strode down several fairways like a barrel-chested drill sergeant, fully 50 yards ahead of McIlroy. Cordial conversations?
There were none. Sir Nick Faldo, commentating on the contest, admitted: “This was the first match where I really felt the tension.”
Westwood, pursuing the world No 1 ranking with his Northern Irish rival, came to the chastening realisation that it was McIlroy who had his number.
What other conclusion was there to draw from a tussle in which he had been three up after four holes, only to lose by the same margin?
McIlroy’s triumph was all the more extraordinary for Westwood’s reputation as a peerless frontrunner. But the older man looked powerless in the teeth of so prodigious a talent.
The decisive break arrived at the 11th, where McIlroy had flung his second shot right into scrubland, only to find a favourable lie and execute a superb escape to within three feet of the flag. Westwood, with admirable nerve, holed his own 10-footer for a half, but the balance of this confrontation had been turned upside down.
Reeling off three birdies in succession, McIlroy moved three up himself, while profiting from a bizarre piece of Westwood misfortune. On the par-five 13th, the Englishman tweaked his drive left, and looked on helplessly as the ball buried itself down the back of a woman’s yellow sweater. The lady in question, LaRue Branch, was mercifully unscathed.
Billy Foster, Westwood’s caddie, was not too disconsolate to ignore the humour of the incident. “Would you mind walking 250 yards further forward?” he asked.
The comic break in the drama still could not galvanise Westwood, who pulled his approach shot into even deeper rough, while McIlroy leathered a fairway wood to set up an eagle attempt.
The result looked all but decided, although Westwood was too ferocious a competitor to be beaten tamely. At the short par-four 15th, he rediscovered his power off the tee, flushing his drive all of 330 yards before holing out for a two.
McIlroy would not be cowed, though, and when Westwood miscued an 18-footer at the 17th, a hand was finally offered in concession. Again, there was scant warmth in the gesture, as the two again prepared to go their separate ways: McIlroy to the championship decider against Hunter Mahan, and Westwood to an anticlimactic consolation game, which he lost to Mark Wilson. Westwood, you supposed, left Arizona the more dejected. For McIlroy had shown him, out here in cowboy country, that this tournament was not big enough for the both of them.

SUNDAY RESULTS

 MORNING SEMI-FINALS:


HUNTER MAHAN (US) bt MARK WILSON (US) 2 and 1.


RORY McILROY (Northern Ireland) bt LEE WESTWOOD (England) 3 and 1.


AFTERNOON FINAL (18 holes)

MAHAN bt McILROY 2 and 1.

THIRD-PLACE PLAY-OFF

WILSON bt WESTWOOD 1 hole.                                                                                   

SEMI-FINAL RECAP
McIlroy was three down after four holes to Westwood but staged a brilliant fightback to beat the World No 3
Westwood went in front on the par-five second, pitching on to five feet for a birdie while McIlroy missed from 22 feet.
McIlroy found a greenside bunker on the third and then the greenside rough on the driveable fourth and Westwood was three up after four holes.
But Westwood missed a putt from 10 feet to save par on the fifth and McIlroy birdied the sixth to bring the deficit down to one.
The Northern Irishman, who would be the youngest winner of the championship should he prevail, drew level at the par-five eighth with a birdie putt from 14 feet.
Then he birdied the ninth, 12th and 13th and, amazingly, after being three down through four holes, was three up after 13.
But Westwood hit back with an eagle on the par-five 15th but McIlroy wrapped it up on the 17th.

FINAL
After the first five holes were halved, Mahan took a stranglehold on the outcome by winning the sixth, seventh, eighth and 10th holes to surge into a four-hole lead.
McIlroy got his game going at last to win the 11th and 14th and be two down with four to play. But it was so far and no further for the Ulsterman. The last four holes were halved, leaving Mahan the winner by 2 and 1.

THIRD-PLACE PLAY-OFF
Westwood never led in a match that went all the way to the 18th green.
Wilson won the second and third to take a two-hole lead but Westwood won back the fourth only to go two down again by losing the sixth.
Westwood won the seventh to get back to one down but Wilson's capture of both the 11th and 13th holes would prove crucial to the outcome.
That put the American three up and he was able to resist Westwood's rally to win the 14th and 15th and be only one down with three to play.
Wilson was able to halve each of them to run out the one-hole winner of the official third place.