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

It looks as if the Big Easy is changing his mind about skipping the WGC-Accenture Match Play Championship. One source indicates Ernie Els will fly to Arizona to play the event at the Gallery at Dove Mountain in Tucson. After a pair of top-10 finishes in Dubai and India the past two week's Els wrote on his website that he would not rejoin the PGA Tour until the Honda Classic and he would stay in the U.S. until the Masters. But Els, who lost in the first round of the Match Play the last three times he has played it (2003, 2006 and 2007), has contacted tournament officials about attending. One report has it that wife Liezl convinced Els to play in Arizona and head to Florida from there.

Before he plays in Tucson, Els must find out if his new Callaway I-mix driver conforms to USGA standards. He kept the club out of play for the first two rounds of last week's Indian Masters on the European Tour, but used it on the weekend when the R&A told tour officials the driver was acceptable. However, after the tournament ended, the R&A determined it did not conform. "The [R&A] thought we were asking about adjustability, which was legal as of Jan. 1," David Garland, director of European Tour operations said in Golf World's Feb. 15 issue. "But the head--which has some cosmetic changes--had not been ruled on yet. This was not Ernie's fault, nor did the club have any performance benefits outside the rules. And since the competition had closed, there is no penalty on Ernie. But he can't use it again until it's on the conforming list."

Els entry in Tucson means that unless someone else withdraws, Anthony Kim will be bumped from the final spot in the field and J.B. Holmes will have the task of playing Tiger Woods in the first round.

--John Antonini

A shoulder injury has caused Brett Wetterich to withdraw from the WGC-Accenture Match Play Championship next week and casts doubt on the long hitter's entire 2008 season. Wetterich played the 2007 season with a sore left shoulder and injured it further when he slipped on some ice in the off-season. An initial MRI showed a torn labrum. An operation could sideline him for 6-9 months, but Wetterich is seeking a second opinion.

Anthony Kim is the immediate beneficiary of Wetterich's withdrawal from the Match Play. The 66th-ranked player in the world now qualifies for the matches at The Gallery at Dove Mountain in Tucson and gets the unenviable task of playing Tiger Woods in the first round. (Ernie Els had already announced his intention to skip the event, getting 65th-ranked J.B. Holmes into the field.)

Arron Oberholser, who withdrew from the AT&T Pebble Beach National Pro-Am because of bursitis in his right shoulder, was considered a candidate to skip the Match Play, but he said Monday afternoon that he's going to play. "I'm going to play for sure," he said. "In my mind there's no doubt. Sooner or later I have to test it out in competition."

Barring more withdrawals before the championship begins Feb. 20, here's a look at first-round matchups:
Tiger Woods vs. Anthony Kim
Arron Oberholser vs. Tim Clark
K.J. Choi vs. Rod Pampling
Scott Verplank vs. Soren Hansen
Vijay Singh vs. Brad Dredge
Paul Casey vs. Nathan Green
Aaron Baddeley vs. Justin Leonard
Lee Westwood vs. David Toms
Sergio Garcia vs. Peter Hanson
Niclas Fasth vs. Boo Weekley
Justin Rose vs. Brendan Jones
Toru Taniguchi vs. Nick O?Hern
Geoff Ogilvy vs. Robert Allenby
Trevor Immelman vs. Brandt Snedeker
Steve Stricker vs. Pat Perez
Stuart Appleby vs. Andres Romero
Adam Scott vs. Daniel Chopra
Richard Sterne vs. Woody Austin
Angel Cabrera vs. John Senden
Martin Kaymer vs. Nick Dougherty
Henrik Stenson vs. Jerry Kelly
Stewart Cink vs. Shingo Katayama
Jim Furyk vs. Jonathan Byrd
Retief Goosen vs. Charles Howell III
Rory Sabbatini vs. Colin Montgomerie
Stephen Ames vs. Robert Karlsson
Padraig Harrington vs. Camilo Villegas
Iam Poulter vs. Miguel Angel Jimenez
Zach Johnson vs. Anders Hansen
Luke Donald vs. Mark Calcavecchia
Hunter Mahan vs. Mike Weir
J.B. Holmes vs. Phil Mickelson