Fantasy Golf: Match Play Update - Day 1

It was a bumpy first round for the Fantasy Golf Report but, despite only advancing 19 of 32 players to Day 2, we somehow managed to keep our final eight almost intact with Ian Poulter being the only casualty (and a major casualty he was for me personally - certainly did not see Ricky Fowler coming). If you were watching late in the day on Wednesday, then you know that this bracket could look a lot different if it weren't for some major hiccuping on the part of guys like Gary Woodland who was 3 up with 3 to play and lost to Graeme McDowell, Stephen Gallacher who barely got his 8 footer for the win on 18 to the hole and lost to Ernie Els with a sloppy bogey on the 19th and Kiradech Aphibarnrat who absolutely gave away his match against Henrik Stenson down the stretch when he putted like he was trying to do it while spelling his name backwards at a drunk driving checkpoint.*

Draw your own conclusions.

Now we move on to Day 2 where the star power has definitely been diminished by the untimely demise of guys like Poulter, Zach Johnson, Dustin Johnson and Keegan Bradley (along with Tiger, Phil and Adam Scott who watched ZJ get blitzed by Richard Sterne and felt a little better about their decisions not to attend). We still have some strong match-ups like Harris English v. Rory McIlroy, Sergio Garcia v. Bill Haas and my favorite, Billy Horschel v. Jason Day. With Day advancing along with Hunter Mahan and Jason Dufner, you'd almost think that the golf Gods were favoring certain players who have something in common.  

Footnotes

* Honorable mention in the season of giving department goes to Marc Leishman, Scott Stallings and David Lynn who all played their final holes like they'd just gotten messages from the clubhouse that said, "your wife has called three times and she sounds pissed."