Wednesday 29 April 2015 10:36, UK
The new format may have spared Mikko Ilonen a win-or-bust showdown with Rory McIlroy, but the Finn is relishing an equally daunting opening contest in the WGC-Cadillac Match Play this week.
As the lowest ranked player in the 64-man field, Ilonen would usually have been paired with the world No 1 in a first-round knockout match at Harding Park in San Francisco. But with the players now split up into 16 groups of four, Ilonen will instead take on Masters champion Jordan Spieth, Ryder Cup star Lee Westwood and American Matt Every in the new round-robin format.
Ilonen was first reserve for the tournament when he left Shanghai on Sunday evening having finished joint 18th in the Volvo China Open, but discovered upon landing that he was in the field after Phil Mickelson withdrew for personal reasons.
Spieth has been in brilliant form either side of his record-breaking victory at Augusta National, but Ilonen has an excellent match play record having won the British Amateur Championship back in 2000 before lifting the Volvo World Match Play title last October, defeating Henrik Stenson in the final.
"Hey, it's match play and anything can happen, we all know that," Ilonen said. "I definitely don't have anything to lose against Jordan. If you look at how good he has been recently, and as much as I hate to say it, how bad I have been lately, then there really is nothing for me to lose.
"My form has been poor but we know how quickly it can turn in this game and maybe match play is what I need to get going. I have a pretty good match play record.
"That win (last October) is basically what got my ranking high enough to sneak in here and beating a lot of the European Ryder Cup players in that tournament so soon after they had won in Gleneagles gave me a lot of confidence and belief that I can do well in this format."
New format
Group matches will be played on Wednesday, Thursday and Friday and the winner of each group advances to the last 16 on Saturday morning, with the quarter-finals on Saturday afternoon. The semi-finals will be held on Sunday morning with the final and consolation match later the same day.
That could mean a hectic weekend for top seed McIlroy, who plans to attend the fight between Floyd Mayweather and Manny Pacquiao in Las Vegas on Saturday night, having possibly played 36 holes - or more - on Saturday, with the prospect of the same to come on Sunday.
There is no guarantee McIlroy will get that far, especially as the four-time major winner finds himself in a group with FedEx Cup winner Billy Horschel, former US PGA champion Jason Dufner and Brandt Snedeker.
Only Tiger Woods has won the tournament as the number one seed (in 2003, 2004 and 2008), while McIlroy is not one of the 12 players in the field with previous experience of Harding Park from either the 2009 Presidents Cup or the American Express Championship in 2005.
Australia's Jason Day is the defending champion and will be looking to improve on his 14-3 record in the event, having reached the semi-finals in 2013 before beating Victor Dubuisson in last year's final.
Spieth, who reached the quarter-finals last year before losing to Ernie Els, would become the youngest winner of a WGC event by almost two years if he can lift the trophy on Sunday.
The 21-year-old has finished in the top 20 in nine of his last 10 events, including seven top-10 finishes, two runner-ups and victories at the Valspar Championship and the Masters.
Watch the WGC-Cadillac Match Play Championship live on Wednesday from 9pm on Sky Sports 4 - your home of golf.
