The Starters’ Shack—Bracket Breakdown

By Chris Fry
PGA of Canada

With March Madness less than a month away, I’m already thinking about my potential bracket big dogs and bracket busters.

The usual cast of characters—Kentucky, N.C. State, Kansas and Ohio State—look mighty in conference play, but it doesn’t take much for a squad from Temple or South Florida to go bonkers at a neutral site and send Dick Vitale into a tizzy.

Listen, if Butler can make it to the national finals two years in a row (and nearly upset Duke in ’10) than surely an overachieving team from VCU can make another magical run this year in New Orleans.

OK, but enough about college hoops. I’ve already spent nearly 100 words (of my 645 word allotment) trying to work in my love for tournaments that feature the bracket system. And, I haven’t even gotten to the sport best suited (in my opinion) for this type of head-to-head contest—golf.

So, the WGC-Accenture Match Play Championship goes down the end of this month in Arizona and apparently Luke Donald is pretty pumped to defend his title.

He was at a media event on Monday hyping up the tournament and here’s what he had to say about a match play events.

“I certainly look forward to it. I've always thrived at match play. The fact that we do play a lot of individual stroke play tournaments during the course of the year, when you have a match play event, it's something different. It's new. I certainly enjoy the challenge of one on one. It's a tough challenge it's a tough format, because you can have days that you play well and go home. I think all of the players really enjoy that difference. You feel like you're teeing it up with the last group on Sunday in the match. That makes it exciting for the players too.”

Donald, the No. 1 golfer on the planet (maybe?), professing his love for the match play format is just awesome.

And it’s funny because another No. 1 ranked golfer was just telling me l how much he was looking forward to playing in this year’s PGA Championship of Canada sponsored by Mr Lube and presented by TaylorMade-adidas Golf.

Brian McCann, the top ranked player on the PGA of Canada Player Rankings presented by RBC, pretty much echoed Donald’s comments—he loves the different format; it’s exciting because anything can happen; the nerves come in to play a little more; different strategies are used throughout a single round; etc., etc.

I certainly got the sense that McCann wants another shot at getting his named etched on the P.D. Ross Trophy.

But, if I’ve learned anything from watching March Madness and the WGC Match Play, being seeded No. 1 doesn’t assure anyone of anything.

Consider these numbers:

Only 22 times since 1949 has a No. 1 ranked team won the March Madness tournament.

Since its inception in 1999, Tiger Woods is the only No.1 seed to capture the WGC-Accenture Match Play Championship. He did do it three times (2003, ’04 and ’08), though.

Moral of the story: just like March Madness and next week’s WGC tournament, this year’s PGA Championship of Canada at Country Hills in Calgary will be wildly entertaining with a number of bracket big dogs and bracket busters.

Over the next four months you can expect to see some pretty cool coverage of the championship leading up to tournament week. Lots of profiles, Tweets, videos and if we can pull it off, an online and interactive bracket platform that will give you the opportunity to pick the winners of every match. We think it’s going to be pretty neat and can’t wait to see how your picks hold up.