Westwood get the light for the Match Play Championship

He has led after 48 with the 49 holes she has played through three rounds at Dove Mountain, barely breaking a sweat beneath the blazing sun in the high desert. And that he erased more bad memories Friday which has a 3-and-2 victory over Nick Watney, who had eliminated Westwood all the last two years.

You desire to come out and obtain momentum immediately, said Westwood, who birdied the opening two holes for your second straight match. And inside your do this is simply by winning holes.

Now, Westwood is two matches away from an attempt at his first World Golf Championship, as well as a return to No. One out of the planet.

Rory McIlroy also can visit No. One out of the entire world for the first time in the young career by winning the Match Play Championship. He also had a fairly discount golf clubs easy time, winning for the 17th hole over Miguel Angel Jimenez.

Westwood and McIlroy take presctiption track to face each other Sunday morning inside the semifinals. The battle for No. 1 put some interest into a normally dull afternoon.

Not one of the matches went the length until the final last one, when Bae Sang-moon missed a 6-foot putt around the 17th hole, simply to end John Senden with a par putt from on the same distance around the 18th hole.

A pair of the matches only went to the 17th, and four in the third-round matches ended on the 15th hole.

McIlroy has struggled to block your idea that he might go to No. 1.

It's a nice incentive, McIlroy said. It's nice to possess in the back of your mind. And when you're struggling in a very match and locate it hard to acquire Taylormade Rocketballz Irons yourself up, or have any sort of momentum, if you think with that and you also think when you can really search hard, you've still got the opportunity to become No. 1.

Westwood wasn't any. 1 last year, and it's a a lesser priority than to capture his first World Golf Championship. Just addressing the quarterfinals is often a small achievement.

I'm just very happy to be looking for the different restaurant for Friday night, Westwood said. I stood a little chuckle watching The Golf Channel on Wednesday morning and hearing them make all their predictions and items like that. I don't think they were given many right.

I played really well today, Owen said. Tough conditions and drove it generally in most in the fairways and kept plugging away and took some chances.

It's been a certain amount of wandering TaylorMade R11S Driver  around in the wilderness for a couple of years, so it's nice to see play has returned and it's nice to determine several putts drop in.

Defending champion Johnson Wagner was 1 over following a 70. He won the Sony Open in Hawaii in January and tied for second the next week inside Humana Challenge.

This past year, Wagner beat Spencer Levin using a par about the first hole of the playoff.