Matchplay creating player pressure

Phil Mickelson can't sleep nights. Fred Couples battles his nerves and worries about choking. Even Tiger Woods appears mentally drained.

Now the fun really begins at the Match Play Championship, where it's getting more difficult by the day telling the winners from the losers, and Shigeki Maruyama may be the only person still smiling.

"I don't even know who I play tomorrow, but this stuff makes me so nervous I will be choking like a dog," Couples said.

Woods leads a group of 16 survivors chasing the $1 million first prize into a possible 36 holes of play today in a tournament that has already taken a heavy toll on the world's best golfers.

He's joined by only two other players ranked in the top 20, after second round play Thursday saw David Duval getting beaten and Greg Norman collapsing down the stretch to play his way out of the $5 million tournament.

Now, as if two rounds of nerve-racking golf wasn't enough, two more today will leave just four players to tee it up in Saturday's semi-finals.

"My match tomorrow is already creating excitement and anxiety," said Mickelson, who plays Norman conqueror Eduardo Romero. "It's very difficult sleeping at night knowing who you have to play but not what you have to shoot."

Two days of match play did what the creators of the first match play tournament in 14 years on the PGA Tour set out to do -- generate pressure and excitement as players go head-to-head for 18 holes, with the loser heading home.

But the opening rounds decimated most of the big names, with Woods the lone remaining player in the top 10 to make it to the third round. Woods played Stewart Cink in a morning match, with an afternoon quarterfinal against either Bernhard Langer or Jeff Maggert scheduled for the winner.

"We knew some top seeds would lose, but we didn't expect 90 percent of them to lose," Mickelson said.

Even Woods didn't have it easy, having to come back from 1-down at the turn to go ahead with an eagle and birdie on the back nine in his match against Bob Tway. He then stumbled on the 18th hole and had to watch anxiously as Tway's 8-footer for par slid just by the hole to give Woods the win.

"I am a little spent mentally," Woods admitted.

Woods managed to survive, though, something Norman didn't, even as he appeared to have his match wrapped up against Romero.

Norman was 3-up with four holes to go, but Romero won the final two holes -- the last with a 7-iron to within a foot of the hole -- to force extra holes. Norman hit it out of bounds on the second extra hole, but managed to tie it with a bogey, then Romero made a 24-footer for birdie on the next hole to win the match.

"This is what match play is all about," Norman said.

Also losing was Duval, the world's No. 2 player, who admitted a day earlier that he wasn't comfortable with the match play format.

Bill Glasson, playing only his second match play match in 25 years, beat Duval 2 and 1, closing him out on the 17th hole, to advance to a match against Andrew Magee.

"My key was to stay with David, not to let him get on a roll, even though I don't know how you could stop somebody from getting on a roll," Glasson said. "He didn't play as well as he normally does. I was lucky. If a guy is off, he is going to lose. David was just a little off today."

Though many of the big names had to go home with $50,000 consolation prizes for getting into the second round, players like Argentina's Romero and Japan's Maruyama showed why getting together the world's five pro tours for this event might not have been such a bad idea after all.

Only last week, Romero was playing in the Dubai Desert Classic, where he aced a par-3 to win a new car in what he then called the best shot of his life.

He had a new best shot Thursday when he faded a 7-iron to within tap-in range on the 18th hole to tie Norman.

"I think that was the best shot of my life," Romero said. ``The last three holes I played fantastic."

So did Maruyama, the "Smiling Assassin" who was perfect in five matches in the President's Cup in December and has won two more here.

Maruyama, who likes Michael Jordan so much he has his number 23 on his bag, bowed to players on the driving range and smiled as he walked down every fairway. Over each shot, though, he was all business as he disposed of Justin Leonard 4 and 2.

"I am more confident because a lot of people recognise me as a winner," Maruyama said. "My confidence is becoming more like deep-rooted in myself."

"Anything can happen in 18 holes," Woods said.