Last week's Cisco World Matchplay Championship at Wentworth was never considered one of the majors but it did provide a major example of matchplay golf.

Two top players going head to head in matchplay battle is always intriguing.  It's not just a matter of playing against the course it's a matter of the psychology that goes on between player and player. This year it was a bit more with two friends, two neighbours and the oldest player on the tour who had proved himself this year against one of the youngest and brightest prospects in golf. It was a  spectacle of matchplay golf at its best.

Mark O'Meara had already won the US Masters and the Open Championship this year and is now in line for Player of the Year Award. Tiger Woods has won only once but has been in contention numerous times and in the final at Wentworth it became clear he was not treating this as a friendly neighbourly game for a few dollars that O'Meara and himself regularly play for.

During the week he had dropped his manager, Hughes Norton, at IMG not because he wasn't earning enough money but apparently because he wasn't winning enough tournaments.

No, this was  a game that Woods wanted to win badly and no doubt he would have got an extra thrill in beating O'Meara in the World Matchplay Championship.

This was apparent at the 11th hole in the morning of the 36-hole final. O'Meara had left his ball two feet from the hole and in most people's minds in the gimme zone. But not in Woods who asked O'Meara to putt out. If matches turn on small things then this was probably the turning point in this match.

As they walked towards the next tee O'Meara was heard to remark that he would remember it back home when they play over the Isleworth in Orlando.

O'Meara has probably holed more two foot putts that he cares to remember and this was probably no more significant than the others. It was though significant in that it reminded him Tiger was out there to win, pals or no pals.

O'Meara can be considered to be on of the game's hardest players. He won the Masters with birdies on the 17th and 18th holes to win by one-shot and he birdied the 71st hole in the Open Championship and won on the playoff against Brian Watts.

At Wentworth he was three down at lunch but came out for the second 18 holes with a real mental edge after seeing a television report stating that Woods had a massive lead. By the fifth hole Woods had lost his three-hole advantage. O'Meara matched Woods all the way to the final hole where they arrived all-square.  A birdie putt from the edge of the 18th green clinched his victory. Woods had not just lost the Matchplay he had lost the mental battle that this type of format provides.

Afterwards O'Meara said "Believe me, it was pretty intense out there. Tiger didn't say very much and he was determined to give nothing away, like at the 11th this morning when I could hardly believe he wanted me to putt a two-footer. And I told him so."

It was a lesson for the pupil and he may remember that two foot putt longer than O'Meara.

For the rest of us it provided a superb spectacle of matchplay golf.

(26th October 1998)