The field has been finalised for the World Golf Championships-Andersen Consulting Match Play Championship, which will be held Jan. 3-7 at Metropolitan Golf Club in South Oakleigh, Victoria, Australia, and unless there are any withdrawals by Monday, a total of 19 European Tour Members will be action.
The field consists of the top-64 available players from the Official World Golf Ranking as of Dec. 11, 2000. Friday, December 22 marked the deadline for players to commit to the event.
There are several mouth-watering ties in the first round on Wednesday, January 3 – most notably the clashes between Phillip Price and Paul McGinley and the contests between Michael Campbell and Jarmo Sandelin and Retief Goosen against Per-Ulrik Johansson.
Ernie Els, the World Number Two and top seed for the week, faces Kevin Sutherland while Sweden’s Mathias Gronberg, who qualified at Number 99 in the Official World Golf Rankings, takes on reigning Masters champion Vijay Singh.
Defending champion Darren Clarke has withdrawn from the World Golf Championships-Andersen Consulting Match Play Championship and the following week's Mercedes Championships because of personal circumstances.
"It's a major disappointment as I was really looking forward to defending my title, but in the circumstances, I need to be with my family," Clarke said in a statement.
Here is the complete list of the 64 players and their seedings, which are based on position in the Official World Golf Ranking:
Upper Bracket
Ernie Els (1) vs. Kevin Sutherland (64)
Franklin Langham (32) vs. Hidemichi Tanaka (33)
Robert Allenby (16) vs. Steve Lowery (49)
Duffy Waldorff (17) vs. Skip Kendall (48)
Justin Leonard (8) vs. Hirofumi Miyase (57)
Phillip Price (25) vs. Paul McGinley (40)
John Huston (9) vs. Steve Stricker (56)
Scott Verplank (24) vs. Craig Parry (41)
Tom Lehman (4) vs. Mark McNulty (61)
Toshi Izawa (29) vs. Bob Estes (36)
Kirk Triplett (13) vs. Kenny Perry (52)
Steve Flesch (20) vs. Fred Funk (45)
Michael Campbell (5) vs. Jarmo Sandelin (60)
Paul Lawrie (28) vs. Jeff Sluman (37)
Bob May (12) vs. Jonathan Kaye (53)
Jose Coceres (21) vs. Scott Dunlap (44)
Lower Bracket
Hal Sutton (2) vs. Greg Chalmers (63)
Toru Taniguchi (31) vs. Bernhard Langer (34)
Stuart Appleby (15) vs. Jean Van de Velde (50)
Retief Goosen (18) vs. Per-Ulrik Johannson (47)
Stewart Cink (7) vs. Craig Stadler (58)
Dennis Paulson (26) vs. Chris DiMarco (39)
David Toms (10) vs. Tom Scherrer (55)
Shigeki Maruyama (23) vs. Andrew Coltart (42)
Vijay Singh (3) vs. Mathias Grönberg (62)
Joe Ozaki (30) vs. Tim Herron (35)
Chris Perry (14) vs. Nobuhito Sato (51)
Dudley Hart (19) vs. Brad Faxon (46)
Jim Furyk (6) vs. Patrik Sjöland (59)
Gary Orr (27) vs. Steve Pate (38)
Padraig Harrington (11) vs. Glen Day (54)
Pierre Fulke (22) vs. Brent Geiberger (43)
The first alternate is Australian Nick O'Hern. Greg Kraft of the United States is second alternate, and Australia's Peter O'Malley, third.
