Monty through to HSBC Match Play semi-final

BY iseekgolf.com | European PGA Tour | 2006 HSBC World Match Play Championship | Matchplay Round Two | 16 Sep 2006

This season’s HSBC World Match Play semi-finals will see Scotland’s Colin Montgomerie face England’s Paul Casey and Sweden’s Robert Karlsson take on American Shaun Micheel with a place in this year’s championship finale at stake.

This year’s title race provided another thrilling day of action over the West Course at Wentworth where the eight quarter-finalists had to battle the elements as well as each other over another gruelling 36-holes of match play golf.

Montgomerie was first to book his place in the final four with a narrow one hole victory over defending champion Michael Campbell.

The Ryder Cup star recovered from at one stage being four down to the New Zealander to level the contest in the latter stages of their opening round.

He then took the lead for the first time in the match at the 2nd and was never again headed although the match was in the balance all the way to the final hole.

As in his opening match against England’s David Howell, Montgomerie secured his progress on the 18th green where he capitalised on Campbell’s failure to escape a greenside bunker.

Montgomerie, who had found the same bunker, managed an excellent up and down to set up the meeting with Casey.

“He’s had a lot of wins in a row round here,” commented Montgomerie, “He was the defending champion and had a good win yesterday, so it was a job well done.”

Reflecting on the crucial 36th hole he added, "We were both in the bunker on the left and he was very unfortunate actually. One of us had to play first out of that bunker and I was about two inches closer than he was.

“If I would have played first I would have left it in the bunker aswell. It’s a new bunker and the sand is heavier than most and I think I would have done exactly the same thing if I had gone first. I hit the ball harder knowing what to expect.”

For the second day running the Englishman recorded the biggest win of the day, a 5&3 triumph over Canada’s Mike Weir.

As with the previous clash, there was very little between the two over the first 18 holes and they went into the break all-square.

Weir stole the initiative after lunch but Casey soon turned it around and battled hard to stretch his advantage for the majority of the round.

Trailing by three holes, Weir appeared to injure his back on the 14th tee and that effectively ended the contest with two successive bogeys handing Casey another impressive win.

“It will be very good. There will be a huge Monty crowd,” commented Casey looking ahead to tomorrow. “I mean he’s probably the favourite going into tomorrow. He knows this place very well and with the green as receptive as they are it will bring his long irons close and I’ll have to play extremely good golf to get near him.”

A major driving force for the Englishman is this year’s European Tour Order of Merit title and with the current leader David Howell failing to make it past the first round this week, Casey knows he can close the gap on the No.1.

“I’m very aware of that,” he told the gathered media. “Getting to the final would be a big, big step towards trying to catch David. That is the goal for the rest of the season.”

The third European into the final four was Karlsson, who saw off the challenge of Argentina’s Angel Cabrera 4&3.

Although he failed to light up the course as he did yesterday he still dominated his match-up with the big-hitting South American.

One up as they began the afternoon round, the Swede soon doubled his lead but the resilient Cabrera struck back immediately but their tit-for-tat exchange saw Karlsson restore his advantage with an eagle three at the par five 4th.

Again Cabrera rallied but he faltered on the back nine and birdies from Karlsson at the 12th and 13th saw the Ryder-Cup bound star close in on the win.

That finally came on the 15th where a bogey five from Karlsson was enough to bring an end to the match.

“When I got here I didn’t really look at who I was going to playing in the semi-finals with so it’s a fantastic feeling to be there now and I’m just going to go home and try as much as possible to be fresh for tomorrow.”

The last player to book their tee time for tomorrow was Micheel, who memorably ended the title hopes of World No.1 Tiger Woods yesterday.

The 2003 USPGA champion added the name of Luke Donald to his list of notable scalps after completing a 4&2 victory as the sun began to set over the West Course.

Micheel dominated proceedings from the outset after beginning with back-to-back birdes in the morning to immediately force Donald into playing catch-up golf.

He grabbed a birdie of his own but then suffered as Micheel notched four more to move to 5up by the 12th. A blip of a bogey on the 13th from the American hardly caused much concern and two more birdies before lunch saw him restore that formidable five hole lead.

Five soon became seven and the statisticians began hunting through the record books but to his credit Donald dug in and threatened a remarkable comeback.

The tide appeared to be turning in the favour of the Englishman as he clawed his way back to within three holes but with holes and time running out Micheel was able to finally close out the match with a birdie three at the 16th.

“I had a nice round of golf,” the American commented. “When you get a big lead like that, sometimes its difficult to play, it’s hard to explain. Most people say that you’ve got to go for the throat and that’s really what I was trying to do.”

“I knew that I was going to have to play well, and I did that this morning. I think that’s probably the most important thing that I did today was get off to a good start.”

After two big wins Micheel also admitted that he has thought about winning the event.

“I started thinking about that a little bit last night,” he added. “I feel like I’m playing well enough to win.”

Photo – Anthony Powter