O'Meara has what it takes for match play

CARLSBAD, Calif. Mark O'Meara was taking inventory of what it will take to win the Match Play Championship. He sounded very much like he was describing himself, even if that wasn't his intention.

"Experience, wisdom, a little bit of patience," he said on the driving range at La Costa Resort on Monday. "And you can't get too rattled if you get off to a bad start."

At age 41 and coming off the best year of his life, O'Meara has all of those traits.

He cited the experience being in the hunt so many times in a major championship as one reason he won the Masters. He relied on wisdom and patience to pull off the major double in July, winning the Open in a playoff over Brian Watts.

And O'Meara knows a thing or two about getting off to a bad start, particularly in match play. Just four months ago, he fell behind Tiger Woods in the final of the World Match Play Championship in England before rallying on the final nine holes, winning 1-up with a birdie putt from the fringe on the 36th hole.

But O'Meara believe he has something even better in his corner this week. While just about everyone else was tuning up in Los Angeles for the first $5 million World Golf Championship event of the year, O'Meara was on the slopes.

"It seems like all the guys who go skiing play well the next week," he said, referring to David Duval returning from a week skiing in Idaho and winning the Bob Hope Chrysler Classic with a 59 in the final round.

"I'd like to play well this week."

Once again, O'Meara seems to be a forgotten star this week. He proved a year ago that golf knows no age limit, becoming the oldest player to win two majors in a year. He won the Masters, but no one talked about a Grand Slam. He won the Open, yet few people seriously thought he would be a factor in the PGA Championship. He tied for fourth.

In the first official Matchplay event since Tucson in 1985, most of the attention is on Tiger Woods, the only player who win three straight U.S. Amateurs, and Ernie Els, a three-time winner of the World Match Play Championship.

Never mind that O'Meara is also a former U.S. Amateur champion. Is his dramatic victory over Woods in the World Match Play already forgotten?

And if the good vibes that come with having had success at a particular course counts for anything, there's another reason not to count out O'Meara. He won the Mercedes Championship at La Costa three years ago, finished a stroke behind Phil Mickelson last year and has one other runner-up finish.

But all the wisdom and all the experience has taught O'Meara one thing about match play -- it's anybody's game.

Woods, ranked No. 1 in the world, has to take on three-time Masters and British Open champion Nick Faldo in the opening round. Els, coming off a victory last week in the Nissan Open, plays Paul Azinger, a Ryder Cup stalwart who approaches match play like a game of five-card stud.

Colin Montgomerie won the last Andersen Consulting World Championship of Golf -- on American soil, no less -- but has to first get through Craig Stadler, who grew up in the San Diego and has a history of doing well at La Costa. PGA champion Vijay Singh has to play Rocco Mediate, who outdueled Woods to win in Phoenix last month.

"In this field, you can't take anyone for granted," O'Meara said. ``You need to know, you're talking about the top 64 players in the world. It's not like No. 3 versus No. 300. The top 70 or 80 are really world-class players. They can beat any player."

The Match Play Championship isn't a major, but no other tournament -- especially one in its first year of existence -- has generated this much excitement.

Payne Stewart, who won the rain-shortened Pebble Beach National Pro-Am two weeks ago, was already talking about the amount of gamesmanship that will go into the matches. Azinger says just about every shot he hits will depend on what Els is doing.

"It's dog-eat-dog, every round," said Nick Price, who plays the first match of the tournament Wednesday morning against Frankie Minoza. "It's going to be a survival."