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WGC-Accenture first round draw

2012-02-20 09:53:33

Luke Donald will start the defence of his Accenture Match Play title against former World No 1 Ernie Els at Dove Mountain on Wednesday.

The duo are coming off disappointing showings in the Northern Trust Open - Donald finished 56th and Els 59th.

Each carded a 78 in Sunday’s final round, with Donald racking up eight bogeys in his final 12 holes alone.

But while Donald is still riding high at the top of the world rankings, Els, currently ranked 68th, is desperate to get back into the top 50 in order to qualify for the Masters in April.

In fact, Els is only in Tucson this week because Phil Mickelson opted out of the tournament, choosing instead to go on a family holiday.

Barring any further withdrawals, some other matchups willl feature World No 2 Rory McIlroy up against South African George Coetzee, another late entrant after Paul Casey confirmed he had not fully recovered from his dislocated shoulder, sustained on a snowboarding trip at the start of the year.

There are also six all-European encounters in the offing - World No 3 Lee Westwood will take on Belgian Nicolas Colsaerts, Spaniards Sergio Garcia and Miguel Angel Jimenez will battle it out, as will Swedes Robert Karlsson and Fredrik Jacobson, Englishman Justin Rose and Scot Paul Lawrie, a secondf Scot Martin Laird and another Spaniard Alvaro Quiros and also Dane Thomas Bjorn and Italian Francesco Molinari.

Tiger Woods is set to face Spain’s Gonzalo Fernandez-Castano, and will be eager to improve on his first round loss to Thomas Bjorn last year.

The winner of this match will face either Darren Clarke or Nick Watney.

Clarke and Woods have history in this event - the latter was beated by the former in the 2000 final.

The draw (seeded positions in brackets):

(1) Luke Donald v (64) Ernie Els

(32) Jason Dufner v (33) Peter Hanson

(16) KJ Choi v (49) Kyle Stanley

(17) Brandt Snedeker v (48) Retief Goosen

(8) Adam Scott v (57) Robert Rock

(25) Bo Van Pelt v (40) Mark Wilson

(9) Dustin Johnson v (56) Jim Furyk

(24) Thomas Bjorn v (41) Francesco Molinari

(4) Martin Kaymer v (61) Greg Chalmers

(29) David Toms v (36) Rickie Fowler

(13) Matt Kuchar v (52) Jonathan Byrd

(20) Bubba Watson v (45) Ben Crane

(5) Steve Stricker v (60) Kevin Na

(28) Louis Oosthuizen v (37) Aaron Baddeley

(12) Graeme McDowell v (53) YE Yang

(21) Hunter Mahan v (44) Zach Johnson

(2) Rory McIlroy v (63) George Coetzee

(31) KT Kim v (34) Anders Hansen

(15) Sergio Garcia v (50) Miguel Angel Jimenez

(18) Keegan Bradley v (47) Geoff Ogilvy

(7) Jason Day v (58) Rafael Cabrera-Bello

(26) Simon Dyson v (39) John Senden

(10) Charl Schwartzel v (55) Gary Woodland

(23) Ian Poulter v (42) Bae Sang-moon

(3) Lee Westwood v (62) Nicolas Colsaerts

(30) Robert Karlsson v (35) Fredrik Jacobson

(14) Nick Watney v (51) Darren Clarke

(19) Tiger Woods v (46) Gonzalo Fernandez-Castano

(6) Webb Simpson v (59) Matteo Manassero

(27) Alvaro Quiros v (38) Martin Laird

(11) Bill Haas v (54) Ryo Ishikawa

(22) Justin Rose v (43) Paul Lawrie