The PGA Tour is in La Jolla, California for the Accenture Match Play Championship this week, and the special format of that tournament has already produced some sparks between the competitors.
For you non-golfers, match play is different from the usual PGA tournament medal play format where the golfers simply play four rounds and the winner is the player with the lowest aggregate score. Match play, on the other hand, is similar to the normal game that golfers play in which they take on one opponent over 18 holes and the player who wins the most holes — regardless of the respective players’ aggregate score — wins the match. Inasmuch as match play involves two players playing against each other rather than against the entire field, the format often gets the competitive juices of the participants flowing more than a regular Tour event, particularly in matches between two players who do not care for one another.
Well, one of those matches occurred yesterday, and it happened to involve the world’s no. 1-rated player, Tiger Woods. Stephen Ames, a journeyman Tour player who holds the distinction of being the only Tour pro ever to emerge from Trinidad and Tobago, was pitted against Woods in a first round match, and Woods and Ames — as they say on the Tour — have “some issues” with each other.

Six years ago during the Masters Tournament week, just as Woods was getting ready to kick off his streak of winning four straight major tournaments, Ames allegedly characterized Woods in a newspaper article as “a spoiled 24-year-old” who considered himself “bigger than the game” (Ames claimed he was misquoted; the reporter stuck by the story). At any rate, after no one had heard much from Ames since that time, he supplemented those comments earlier this week by observing to reporters that he thought he could beat Woods in their first round match, reasoning that “anything can happen ó especially where [Woods is] hitting the ball.” Fellow Tour player David Toms made the following prescient observation about Ames’ latest comments: “I don’t know if you give the best player in the world any incentive to want to beat you.”
Woods’ reaction to Ames’ comments? He annihilated Ames in the match, winning 9 and 8, which means that Woods won 9 out of the 10 holes that the two played. In match play, such a match is concluded after those 10 holes because Ames could not possibly have won the match even if had won the remaining 8 holes. Thus, a 9 and 8 beating in match play is the equivalent of a 50-0 skunking in a football game where the loser quits early in the 3rd quarter.
In the post-match press conference, Woods was asked whether Ames’ comments had lit a fire under him:

Q. Were you aware of Stephen’s comments yesterday that you weren’t striking . . .
Yes.
Q. I assumed you were.
Yes.
Q. What was your reaction when you saw that?
9 & 8.
Q. Obviously you like challenges, the idea of someone saying you’re not driving the ball well. It must have lit a fire under you.
You might say that.
Q. It would be better if you said it.
As I said, 9 & 8.