Photo: © Joann Dost / Gallery Golf Club The Gallery Golf Club, new home to the Accenture Match Play Championship, is a lot more challenging and prettier than LaCosta. This is the par 4, 13th green with Tucson in the background.

Course information:

The average green size on the South Course is 8,000 square feet, which is a little over the average on the PGA Tour. The course has 88 bunkers and nine holes have water hazards. It's a perfect risk/reward type of course and last year players said it was more of a challenge than La Costa. But there is change in the wind as next year to tournament is going to move to the Ritz-Carlton Golf Club, a Jack Nicklaus-designed course.

History of Match Play:

Match play has been a competitive form of golf that has been around since the birth of the game. It's been sadly neglected for many years, but its making a serious comeback.

Match play's roots are in Great Britain, then moved across the Atlantic when the game became popular there. At the turn of the century more than half of the championships in Britain were determined by match play. Today in the 13 national championships run by the USGA, all but the U.S. Open, U.S. Senior Open and the U.S. Women's Open determine the winner in match play. In the early part of the 19th century, match play was the proper way to determine champions. In a way it was the original form of competition, mano-a-mano. In 1934 four of the 45 tournaments on the PGA Tour were match play. Twenty years later there was only one and by 1958 match play disappeared off the face of the PGA Tour. With the advent of professional golf and television, match play took a back seat. The PGA Championship started as a match play event in 1916 and became one of the biggest tournaments. Interest in the 1920s was incredible. Of course it's easy to see why if you take a look at the list of winners: Gene Sarazen won twice and Walter Hagen won five times. That's one of the reasons there were so many match play events in 1934. The PGA Championship continued to shine in the '30s and '40s with the likes of Tommy Armour, Gene Sarazen, Paul Runyan, Byron Nelson, Sam Snead and Ben Hogan winning more than half of the championships. But the shine turned tinted in the '50s when a rash of nobodies won. The PGA Championship could have survived but they had one very important entity that hated it, television.

TV deemed match play unfriendly. In its infancy it couldn't be controlled like stroke play events. When TV started covering golf tournaments in the '50s, only the weekends were covered with only a one-hour shows. So all people saw of a tournament was the last two or three holes. With the PGA Championship going through a bad spell of champions, plus matches that didn't go to the 18th hole, TV ran away from the championship. So without television, the championship was going nowhere so they changed the format and went to stroke play in 1958. Since then only a number of tournaments have been played on the PGA Tour under a match play format. The first was the U.S. Professional match play championship, which started in 1971 in North Carolina and went three years before it wasn't renewed. DeWitt Weaver won the first, followed by Jack Nicklaus in 1972 and John Schroeder in 1973. In 1984 Deane Beman and Seiko thought that it was time for match play to return and made the Tucson Open the first tournament of the year and had a match play elimination format with all of the money counting as an official event. In the finals Tom Watson beat Gil Morgan and many thought that match play was back on the PGA Tour for good. But it wasn't. The following year Jim Thorpe beat Jack Renner 4 & 3 in the finals and the PGA Tour's love affair with match play came to an end. The following year the tournament was again an elimination tournament but instead of match play, stroke play was used. Again, TV was the problem, with matches ending too early and star players being eliminated in early rounds. Match play was deemed unpopular for any network to put it on the air.

With the increased popularity of the Ryder Cup matches in the early '90s, and the World Match play championship in England being successful since it first started in 1964, match play was again gaining some attention. But the major stumbling block was to get American TV to agree with it. I remember one night in the early '80s I was having dinner with a couple of people that included Chuck Howard, who not only was one of the people that ran ABC Sports, but was the golf producer for the network. We were brainstorming new golf ideas and when it came around to me I said that it would be great if the PGA Tour had a few match play events. The table, with of course a couple of yes men, went terribly quiet and Chuck starred me down in a gruff type of way. With a little laugh he ended the idea by embarrassing me by saying, "you must really not treasure your job with such a asinine idea like that." Being a young production assistant back then I only wished that I could retreat under the table. Years later in talking with Chuck about match play he still hated the format and resisted it. As a matter of fact it was really funny, even though he was the main producer of golf, in the years that I was at ABC Sports starting in 1975 he never produced the Ryder Cup matches, always saying that his football games were more important and admitted he hated doing match play on television.

So, what saved match play? The Ryder Cup was becoming very popular after the European team won in 1987. In 1989, the USA covered the matches from England and created a lot more interest, not only in the matches but in match play in general. In 1991 NBC took over the Ryder Cup and again the golf world loved every minute of the match play events.

The Ryder Cup matches, along with the advent of cable and the increased technology that allowed golf to be televised over 18 holes, helped make match play more of a reality again in the mid-90s. The Presidents Cup matches were developed in 1994 followed by the Anderson Consulting Match play championship in 1995. Both found success as earlier matches were put on cable. Television was also able to cover all of the matches from start to finish. Also helping things was the addition of quick tape editing, which meant that if a match ended early, television wasn't twittling its thumbs with nothing to do to fill the time. Now if a match ended early highlights of that match or other matches could be put together and shown.

Apprehensively, match play has been embraced by the networks. Each year there are three match play events, either the Ryder Cup or President Cup, the World Match Play Championship in England and the World Golf Championship - Accenture Match Play championship. It has been well received by the public and has been growing in stature with each year.

The Buzz:

Each year the excitement seems to get bigger for this championship. This year the buzz will be even bigger as Tiger tries to continue his win streak. We'll also find out why Ernie Els made a last-minute decision to play in event.

The weather is supposed to be dicey this week with a 30% chance of rain in the forecast for Wednesday, Thursday and Friday. The weekend is supposed to be OK, the rain that might fall shouldn't be a major problem, but it will make it tougher for the players. As for the course, everyone likes it, but this will be the last year it's being played at this venue. Next year it moves down the road to the Jack Nicklaus Ritz Carlton.

The big buzz among the players is the anticipation of match play. Upsets happen a lot. As an example, in the nine years of the tournament of the 32 first round matches, there has been an average of 13 upsets. Last year there were 11. This 33% upset-ratio holds true throughout the entire week, so always look for the upset, they will happen.

Photo: © Joann Dost / Gallery Golf Club The 10th at Gallery Golf Club, will be a gem of a par 5 for risk/reward giving players a tough second shot on this 540-yard hole.

Here are some things to look for this week:

The South Course at the Dove is a risk/reward course. All the par 5s are reachable in two, but if shots are missed, the penalty will be dear.

The course favored the long hitters last year and the players that hit the most greens last year were in the finals.

Match play is a rare format on the PGA Tour. Even though it's the game that is played regularly in golf clubs around the world, its not played that much on the PGA Tour. The secret to winning in match play is not playing the best, but, more importantly, avoiding doing the wrong thing at the wrong time. In a lot of matches someone could be striking the ball perfectly and putting well while his opponent could be hitting it all of the lot, missing greens, but chipping in for halves on holes. Before you know it that match could come down to the final hole and the player that isn't doing the best could chip in and win a match. It happens all the time. Remember a score doesn't mean anything in match play.

In this format, inexperience and being a long shot is sometimes a plus. As a perfect example, over the years the No. 1 seed has a 29-8 record. The 19th seed has a 13-8 record while the No. 44 seed has a 12-9 record. What's more, the 59th seed has a 10-9 record. Yes, the first seed has an advantage, but it doesn't guarantee a victory.

On the PGA Tour, there are some players that look more at a big check instead of playing to win. These players are dangerous in match play because they have only one thing to think about, winning. So in some respects this year's 17 Accenture rookies (Woody Austin, Jonathan Byrd, Daniel Chopra, Nick Dougherty, Soren Hansen, Peter Hanson, J.B. Holmes, Brendan Jones, Martin Kaymer, Hunter Mahan, Pat Perez, Andres Romero, John Senden, Brandt Snedeker, Richard Sterne, Camilo Villegas and Boo Weekley) have just as much of a chance as Tiger Woods. Just look at what happened to Woods four years ago when he got beat in the first round by Peter O'Malley. So don't think that just because Tiger Woods is a better player than his first-round draw J.B. Holmes it's going to be a walk in the park because it won't be. Another little tidbit about rookies in this event: over the years rookies are 79-88, so don't discount their chances. Last year was a poor rookie class as only two of the nine made it into the second round. A couple of things that can help you pick a winner is to look at those with good match play records. Past winners of the U.S. Amateur like Tiger Woods, Justin Leonard and Scott Verplank know how to win in this format so they have a bit of an advantage.

Also. look at players with good single records in the Ryder Cup and Presidents Cup. Players like Phil Mickelson and Tom Lehman. Also players that have been doing well of late like Charles Howell III, Phil Mickelson and Tiger Woods should do well this week. But the most difficult place to pick winners is the 32 first-round matches. If you can pick halve of them right you are a super star. As an example last year 21 of the 32 top seeds won, while in 2006 19 of the 32 top seeds won. In 2005, 13 of the 32 top seeds won while in 2004, 12 of the 32 top seeds prevailed so you can see that 13 underdogs won last year, 19 in 2005 and 20 in 2004. The 2007 season has seen a couple of stars win (Mickelson & Woods), but there has been a few long shots (Trahan, Holmes & Chopra) as well. There is no rhyme or reason as to who will get to the finals.

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