PALM BEACH GARDENS, Fla. -- The proposed new order of play for the Florida swing next year will benefit no tournament more than the Honda Classic. A wandering vagabond for years, the Honda seems to have found a permanent home at PGA National's Champion Course and if it's wedged between the WGC-Accenture Match Play Championship and the WGC-CA Championship at Doral -- as has been suggested -- it's virtually guaranteed a superior field. And, not coincidentally, the PGA Tour can also rely on the best players in the world spending those three weeks in the United States.

"Looking at the big picture it's going to help us," says Ken Kennerly, the Honda event's executive director. "Wedged between the two World Golf Championships with Match Play being the event before us I think will help. Half the field is eliminated by Wednesday and then another 16 by Thursday. If it was a full field event prior to us and a full field event after us, that's a lot of big golf right in a row and I think that would be a little bit more concerning. But, I think with Match Play before us a lot of the international players are going to stay in America because they're going to want to play at Doral.

"We've really upgraded [the Honda Classic] substantially. It's a very similar golf course to Doral, in terms of condition. Bermuda greens, Bermuda grasses. It's a great warm up for Doral, frankly. It's like Westchester was prior to the U.S. Open."

-- Jim Moriarty

The WGC-Accenture Match Play Championship was not only a victory for Tiger
Woods, it was a win for the Golf Channel. The three days GC had exclusive
coverage of the event --  Wednesday through Friday --  the broadcast scored the
highest cumulative ratings for those days in the history of the Match Play,
and the Friday 2.0 was the best number scored by GC since it started its
15-year exclusive cable deal with the PGA Tour in 2007. The previous best
rating for GC was 1.7 for the Friday coverage of both last year’s Match Play
and the Tour Championship.

Wednesday at Dove Mountain, when Woods rallied from 3-down with five to play
against J.B. Holmes, pulled a 1.3 rating, with Thursday getting a 1.7 and
Friday, when Woods needed 20 holes to defeat Aaron Baddeley, garnering the
2.0. The numbers far exceeded the slightly more than 0.7 average rating the
network has been getting this year for PGA Tour events. The GC also scored
with its weekend lead-in coverage to the NBC broadcast, getting a 1.2 on
Saturday and a 1.7 on Sunday. The GC ratings include the audiences of both
the live coverage and the prime-time replay, but the weekend numbers were
particularly strong since they reflected only the live broadcast.

According to the Golf Channel, its previous best this season was at the
Buick Invitational, also won by Woods, which had a 1.1 on Thursday and a 1.5
on Friday. The AT&T Pebble Beach National Pro-Am scored a 0.8 and a 0.9,
while the FBR Open had a 0.7 and a 1.0. Each Nielsen Media Ratings point
represents 750,000 million homes for the Golf Channel.

NBC's final-round coverage earned a 3.5 overnight rating, an increase of 67
percent from last year (2.1) and was the best final-round overnight for the
event since 2004, when Woods also won. Saturday's semifinal coverage on NBC
earned a 3.2, 88% higher than last year (1.7/) and also the best Saturday
overnight since 2004. Each ratings points represents 1.1 million homes for
NBC.

-- Ron Sirak

As expected, the PGA Tour named Fred Couples captain of the U.S. Presidents Cup team, but that was not the only news made by the tour Tuesday. Greg Norman will be Freddie's opposite number, assuming the captaincy of the International team for the tournament to be held at Harding Park in San Francisco in September, 2009. Couples and Norman replace Jack Nicklaus and Gary Player, who have been the event's captains since 2003.

In other news, Rule 78 is no more. The PGA Tour Policy Board agreed to abandon immediately the controversial cut policy that reduced the weekend field to low 70 plus ties if more than 78 players made the cut. Under the new regulation, if more than 78 players make the cut at a regular PGA Tour event all will compete in the third round. There will be an additional cut after 54 holes to the low 70 players plus ties. Players missing this cut will receive prize money and FedEx Cup points in accordance with their finish.

The policy board agreed to revisit the rule after the Player Advisory Council suggested changes be made. The players were upset that they would not have a chance to improve their position in the standings despite making the cut. They cited players such as Brad Faxon and Jose Maria Olazabal as golfers who made the cut on the number, but played well enough on the weekend to win the tournament.

Zach Johnson, who was elected chairman of the PAC addressed the subject a week ago. "You're talking about the livelihood of the players, which is something the PAC is not taking lightly, the players are not taking lightly, and the board is not taking lightly," he said. "This issue not only encompasses cuts, money, etc., [but also] pace of play, retirement, a lot of issues."

Commissioner Tim Finchem said the tour would continue to monitor the idea of a smaller two-round cut to 65 players, plus ties.

The policy board also approved several other changes. The field at the season-ending Children's Miracle Network Classic, Nov. 6-9, has been reduced from 132 players to 128 and the field at the Memorial tournament has been increased from 105 players to 120. Also, the Fry's Electronics Open will move to The Institute, a San Jose, Calif., course in 2010. The Institute is owned by Fry's Electronics and the tournament will be renamed the Institute Championship. It will become an invitational event with a 120-player field.

Also, Bob Harig of our sister website, ESPN.com, reports that the order of the Florida Swing tournaments will switch in 2009. The Arnold Palmer Championship will get the prime final position on the four-event swing. The new order has the Honda Classic leading off, followed by the WGC-CA Championship at Doral, the PODS Championship and Palmer's event at Bay Hill.

--John Antonini

Fred Couples will replace Jack Nicklaus as captain of the U.S. team for the 2009 Presidents Cup, Golf World has learned. The United States team has defeated the international squad in the last two Presidents Cup matches and leads the overall series 5-1-1. The 2009 event will be held at Harding Park GC in San Francisco. Nicklaus had been the American captain for the last three matches, presiding over the controversial tie in South Africa in 2003 and victories at Robert Trent Jones GC in Virginia in 2005 and Royal Montreal GC in 2007. He also captained the team in 1998 at Royal Melbourne GC. Couples played on the U.S. team in 1994, 1996, 1998 and 2005, compiling a 9-5-2 overall record and a 3-0-1 mark in singles play. The official announcement will be made Tuesday.

MARANA, Ariz. -- Tiger Woods calls Stewart Cink "Kitchen" and he'll be hoping he doesn't throw it at him in the finals of the WGC-Accenture World Match Play the way he did in the semis against Justin Leonard. All Cink did was go out in a little six-under-par 29, build a huge lead and coast to a 4-and-2 win into a Sunday meeting against Woods, who beat defending champion Henrik Stenson, 2 up.

"Boy, it was a hot start," said Cink, who distinguished himself both in the most recent Presidents and Ryder Cups, beating Nick O'Hern in singles in one and Sergio Garcia in the other. "I felt like everything was going in and it was, pretty much. You know, when you get off to a start like that, sometimes you almost find yourself in a position where you don't really know what to do. I think I ran out of gas a little bit. Good thing I had a big cushion because I was leaking a little oil."

Woods' 2 up victory over Stenson, who had won 10 straight in the Accenture Match Play, was a methodical, if somewhat pedestrian match, with both players making birdies on the holes they were supposed to birdie and avoiding mistakes everywhere else. Stenson grabbed a bit of momentum on the 13th when he rescued a par after driving it left deep into the desert. He got all square in the match with a birdie on the 16th, but Woods came right back on the par-5 17th, getting up and down from the greenside bunker for a winning birdie of his own while Stenson couldn't reach the green after driving into the right rough.

"I felt like I was in control of the match all day," said Woods. "I was up early and even though we got all square, he never took the lead." Even on the 17th tee, Woods still felt in control. "We're both long hitters and I've been in that position before. I've played umpteen more matches than he has. I've seen it all and nothing really surprises me out there." Against Cink, Woods will be seeking his third straight title in '08, his sixth straight worldwide (dating back to the BMW Championship last fall) and 15th World Golf Championship title.

And, in the Gone But Not Forgotten category:

Good Monty: It was Good Monty rather than Petulant Monty on the premises all week. He was clever, witty and candid talking about his pending marriage, wanting desperately to get into the Masters and even doing a little not-so-tongue-in-cheek lobbying of European Ryder Cup captain Nick Faldo in the television booth. Warming up next to Boo Weekley before their third round matches (both of which were lost), the American had Monty laughing so hard he could barely pull a wedge back. Seems Boo got in a little fender-bender leaving the course the night before. Montgomerie was a witness to the scene but was just that morning getting the whole story, country-style. At one point he turned to his caddie and said, "Can I take him home with me?"

The Tank: On the 15th hole in their morning semifinal match, K.J. Choi stuck his approach four feet from the hole in an attempt to close in on Woods -- only to have Tiger hole out first from 31 feet. As he was walking off the green, Choi's caddie, Andy Prodger, said, "The magician has done it to us again."

The Desert: Adios. In the desert, all the plants want to hurt you. After tomorrow it's time to go east young men, which means Bermuda grass, warm weather and Augusta on the horizon.

--Jim Moriarty

MARANA, Ariz. -- Never give Tiger Woods life. Aaron Baddeley found that out the hard way Friday in a sensational battle at The Gallery in the third round of the WGC-Accenture Match Play Championship.

Three times the young Australian had chances to put the top-ranked and top-seeded Woods away, but just missed putts. Finally, on the second hole of sudden death, Woods slammed the door with a 13-foot birdie putt, removing his cap just as the ball disappeared into the hole.

"It looked pretty good from where I was," a drained and relieved Woods said afterward.

The match was one for the ages, befitting of a final. Woods (12) and Baddeley (10) combined for 22 birdies. During one stretch, Baddeley birdied eight of nine holes (including a concession), to reverse a 2-down deficit into a 1-up advantage after 15 holes.

Woods responded by hitting an 8-iron to two feet at the par-3 16th for a birdie to square the match. Then Baddeley had near-miss eagle/birdie/eagle attempts at 17, 18 and 1 to win but couldn't convert.

"It was unbelievable, really," said Woods, who will face K.J. Choi in the quarterfinals  Saturday morning. "I made two bogeys and gave him two holes, but he did the same. But every other hole it seemed like we birdied."

Baddeley, still getting comfortable with a swing change, gave Woods all he could handle.

"I played really nice, especially after being 2 down after two," he said. "I was just trying to make as many birdies as I could. It was disappointing to miss those putts, but I'm encouraged with the way I played."

The last time Woods and Baddeley played together was in the final round of the 2007 U.S. Open at Oakmont. Leading by two strokes, Baddeley triple-bogeyed the first hole and shot 80.

"You have to understand he was in a major transition with his golf swing," said Woods. "It takes time. And he's won some tournaments now with his swing and has proven he can hit shots down the stretch. You can't hit the ball poorly at Oakmont and be leading after three rounds."

Woods, the only two-time winner of this event, enjoyed the birdie-fest, as did the large gallery that followed throughout.

He also overcame adversity. At the 495-yard fourth hole, Woods hooked his tee shot into the desert and had a restricted swing because of a cactus. Forced to swing left-handed, he hit a gallery stake with his second shot, barely advancing the ball. This, after a marshal asked if he wanted the stake removed.

"The thing is I was actually aiming probably 15 feet right of that," Woods said of the stake. "Club's upside down, so I hit it kind of off the bottom and it shot left. I wasn't aiming over there, trust me."

At the par-4 13th, Woods pushed his tee shot to the right and hit a marshal in the head, the ball caroming into the desert. Woods gave a glove to the man and showed genuine concern, then had to take an unplayable lie and lost the hole.

"He seemed OK," Woods said. "He was totally alert, there was blood everywhere. I didn't see any knot. He said he was fine."

Woods has now won 20 of his last 23 matches and is 28-6 overall. He is 18-4 against International players and 10-2 against Americans.

He'll be tested again against Choi, who beat him four times last year in head-to-head situations, including victories at the Memorial Tournament and inaugural AT&T National.

"K.J. is a great guy and one of the best drivers out here," said Woods. "He drives it on a string most of the time. He's been very consistent over the last few years. So I expect that will be the case tomorrow and it will be a tough match."

-- Mark Soltau              

MARANA, Ariz. -- A stomach virus is probably not the best of all possible preparations for a title defense but Henrik Stenson seems to be making the best of it anyway. "I was sick as a dog," said the defending champion at the WGC-Accenture Match Play Championship of his condition the week before the event.

"The first week I had a cold so I took it fairly easy. Then, the second week when I was going start practice and we were going to travel over here, I picked up a stomach virus and was as sick as I have ever been," Stenson said. "I've been to Morocco. I've been a few places. I've had a few bugs in the past. It was pretty brutal."

Instead of getting to his Orlando digs on Wednesday the week before the Match Play, Stenson couldn't make the trip until Friday. It was on to Tucson on Sunday. The day before the matches began was his first day of practice in two weeks. "I like match play," said Stenson, which is a good thing because every match he's had so far has gone to the 18th hole or beyond. "The task at hand is very clear. You either beat or get beaten. You need to do better than the guy you're playing. It's the simplicity of it."

Stenson, who already has a pair of good finishes in the desert this year with seconds in Abu Dhabi and Qatar, nicked Robert Allenby 1 up in the first round, then went 25 holes against Trevor Immelman in his second match before beating Jonathan Byrd 1 up to reach the final eight.

"Trevor had a few 15, 20-footers yesterday to put me out of the tournament and, fortunately for me, he didn't make any of those," said the 31-year-old Swede, who finally ended the tussle when he got up and down from the greenside bunker on the drivable par four seventh. Against Allenby, Stenson had to pitch out of trouble on the last, then stiffed a 7-iron to save par and close out the match against the Australian.

Byrd had the easiest opening matches of anyone (outside of Aaron Baddeley, who was conceded his second match when David Toms pulled out with back problems) easily defeating Ernie Els and Andres Romero, neither of whom shot under par, but he had his hands full with Stenson. Byrd made four birdies on the front nine to Stenson's two birdies and eagle. On the back nine Byrd was unable to match Stenson's birdie on the 17th when the Swede reached the 601-yard uphill par 5 in two shots and two putted from 27 feet.

Stenson draws Woody Austin next. "The first time I played with him was at the Wentworth Match Play in October last year and we had a good, tight match," Stenson said. "We had to suspend due to darkness and then come back the next morning and I just managed to make a birdie on 18 to win that one, so I'm sure he wants to make it one-all rather than two-nothing. He's a tough competitor and there are not too many lakes for him to fall into here, either."

-- Jim Moriarty

TUCSON, Ariz. -- It's not at all unusual for mates to meet along the way in the WGC-Accenture Match Play, but in the case of Boo Weekley and Woody Austin, it sometimes seems more like inmates. If the field was paired by eccentricity and candor, they'd be the No. 1 and 2 seeds.

"I think Boo is awesome," said Austin. "I'd love to call him a good friend. I chide with him and he'll chide me back." Weekley got through to the Round of 16 with a 3-and-1 victory over his old scoring buddy, Sergio Garcia, when the hole got in the way of a screaming putt from off the front of the green on the 16th and Sergio couldn't get up and down out of the bunker on the 17th. Austin went 19 holes to beat Adam Scott in one of the handful of exceptionally well-played matches the second day.

Weekley knew Austin's caddie, Brent Henley, from his mini-tour days, so when Boo improbably made it to the big tour the first time in '02, Austin was one of the players who took him under his wing and they've remained friends since.

"Tomorrow is going to be fun," Austin said. "We'll probably be the most talkative of (any) two people in a match."

Though he doesn’t share Boo's passion for hunting and fishing, Austin thinks they're kindred spirits when it comes to golf. "I didn't come from any kind of (golf) background at all. I didn't play or practice in any kind of country club. I have no teacher. I have nothing that you would consider as (being) a professional golfer," he said. "Boo fits the same build. As far as golf backgrounds, I think that's why we get on because we're both not supposed to be here, basically."

And, of course, Boo is just so deliciously Boo. On the practice ground the first morning, when he was asked who he was playing (German phenom Martin Kaymer), Boo looked down the range and replied, "I don’t know. Somebody down there."

On the first hole of his match with Kaymer, he didn't know you could concede a putt. "Martin hit it up on the first hole there and he putted it first and it wasn't probably eight or nine inches from the hole and I'm putting my ball down and he's looking at me and I'm looking at him, like, you going to tap it in? Joe (Weekley's caddie Joe Pyland) said, 'Just pick it up.' I’m like, 'Pick it up?' Honestly, I didn't know. That's how it started out. I mean, it's very strange to just walk up there and just pick your ball up, you know what I mean? Especially when you ain't used to doing it."

Weekley is fighting through some shoulder issues. He fell off a ladder when he was working in his barn at home in the Florida Panhandle before he went to China at the end of last year. "I've got bursitis in my left shoulder and I think a little tear up there, too, so I'm struggling a little bit with it," he says. More than that, he's just ready to get home to Florida next week.

"That's when the season starts," he says, depositing a little tobacco juice on the practice tee.

--Jim Moriarty

TUCSON, Ariz. -- While Tiger Woods was busy dropping a dime on J.B. Holmes with five birdies and an eagle on the back nine to rally from 3 down and Phil Mickelson was trading long bombs with Pat Perez -- the marquee No. 1 seeds both surviving 1 up -- it was a case of the good, the bad and the Utley for the rest.

The Good: No match was better played than the one between Ryder Cup mates Paul Casey and Robert Karlsson, neither of whom made a bogey. Casey was nine under par to win 2 up while the Swede was seven under and X'd out. This is what's known as the "vagaries of match play" though the Swedish version of that phrase is probably unprintable at present.

Woody Austin managed to block out enough Aquaman references to shoot 30 on the outward nine and drown Toru Taniguchi, 6 and 5. Lee Westwood wasn't half bad making eight birdies to beat Brandt Snedeker, 3 and 2. And British Open champion Padraig Harrington admitted to being "a little jumpy" because his game's not on this early in the season, but he was still six under par through 12 holes to take out Jerry Kelly.

Harrington was up at precisely 4:50 a.m. for his 8:08 match. "It's all timed," said the Irishman. "It takes 40 minutes of gym work and 20 minutes to wash up. That's an hour. That's ten to five. It took 40 minutes to get here. That's 6:30. Fifteen minutes for breakfast, 20 minutes for physio. Three minutes to get out to the tee or to the practice ground. An hour to warm up. It's normally two and a half hours, plus travel. So, three hours, 10 minutes and I gave an extra eight minutes today just because it takes a few minutes to get around the place here." Obsessive much?

The Bad: With the family off visiting the Grand Canyon, last-second entry Ernie Els couldn't take as much pleasure in the view from The Gallery. In fact, Els hasn't been a very pretty sight anywhere this year. Two in the water to lose the Alfred Dunhill Championship, one in the hazard to lose to Woods in the Dubai Desert Classic, a 75 to open the Indian Masters and today a 40 on the front nine to lose his match to Jonathan Byrd 6 and 5. "To be honest with you," Els said earlier in the week, "I've taken some big blows in the last four or five years." And the pummeling doesn't seem to be easing up.

The Utley: Sergio Garcia has turned to Stan Utley, the putting and short game guru, to help him get the ball in the hole but he still wasn't comfortable enough with his new stroke to rely on it completely. Instead, Garcia took two putters out on the course with him, using the short putter for the first 14 holes against John Senden and then switching to the belly putter when the nerves frayed, eventually winning 3 and 2.

Oh, and, just one piece of advice, J.B. If all Woods has to do is two-putt from 17 and a half feet to win a hole, tell him to pick it up. Otherwise, you might just set him off.

-- Jim Moriarty

TUCSON, Ariz. -- I don't want to say the Gallery at Dove Mountain is in the middle of nowhere but if you wander very far off the sixth fairway it looks like the location for The Treasure of Sierra Madre. Forget Tiger Woods, where's Humphrey Bogart? It's so inhospitable to spectators about the only thing they can be assured of seeing is a handshake. The commute from Tucson is so long, by the time you get there you feel like you rode in on the back of a burro. The guards at the front gate should say, "Badges? Show us your badges. We need to see your stinking badges."

And was that PGA Tour Commissioner Tim Finchem, out in the desert doing the Walter Huston shuffle? Apparently, instead of gold, he's struck Tiger -- as if there was any difference.

This is, after all, a Tiger Woods week. All is right with the world. The rattlesnakes are jangling out a calypso tune. The javelinas are the Haves. The saguaros stand a little straighter and the leaping cactus seem poised to set Olympic distance marks. The TV cables are laid with more care, the satellite dishes aimed a bit truer. The scaffolding looks to be erected in the style of I.M. Pei. The sunscreen is SPF-perfect; the quotes Churchillian; and relief is there for the asking.

Woods will be attempting to win his sixth tournament in a row. He's accompanied this week by his old instructor, Hank Haney, and his new sports drink, Tiger, which can only mean there's work to be done. He did pause to reminisce about his perfect season, the 36 in a row he bagged one year as a boy. "I peaked at 11," Woods deadpanned.

The unpredictability of match play could well make this the toughest in this latest victory streak. After all, they love the smell of match play in the morning, right up until the casualty reports start coming in.

-- Jim Moriarty