Sutherland hangs on to prevail over old rival McCarron

Apart from the little matter of $1 million (£700,000) being at stake and worldwide television sneaking a look, Scott McCarron and Kevin Sutherland contested the final of the Accenture World Matchplay at La Costa just as they did a high school final 20 years ago.

McCarron and Sutherland both grew up in Sacramento in northern California. "It might not be an amazing story to the rest of the world," Sutherland said. "But it is really cool for Sacramento." In 1982, Sutherland recovered from a large deficit at the turn with a superb back nine to defeat McCarron. The loser had his revenge when Sutherland earned his tour card in 1996. McCarron sent him a photo of the two finalists that day in which Sutherland is seen wearing the briefest of shorts. The message said: "Welcome to the PGA Tour. You cannot wear those shorts out here."

Sutherland, the 62nd seed, can wear what he likes after coming from behind again to beat McCarron, the 45th seed, by one-hole and claim the $698,000 first prize. This is quite a maiden title for the 37-year-old. McCarron led four times in the morning, but three times handed the advantage straight back and the game was square at lunch.

McCarron was then two-up as late as the eighth in the afternoon but Sutherland got level by hitting his tee-shot at the par-three 11th to two feet. Otherwise he was not so accurate off the tee, missing 17 of 28 fairways with his driver. But somehow he kept going and it was bogeys by McCarron at the 14th and 15th holes, when he failed to get up and down from the rough, that put Sutherland in front for the first time.

A fine bunker shot at the last forced McCarron to hole from eight feet but his long putter, so hot earlier in the week, let him down again. So McCarron was unable to make amends for bogeying the final hole at Riviera the previous Sunday to lose the Nissan Open.

Sutherland began the year just outside the top-64 on the world rankings and determined to make the field. From two-down with two holes to play against David Duval in the first round, Sutherland went on to win at the 20th and then Paul McGinley, Jim Furyk, USPGA champion David Toms and Faxon.

The sort of fighting qualities displayed by the finalists and experienced players like Azinger, Tom Lehman and Jose Maria Olazabal, who lost in the quarter-finals to Faxon, was sadly lacking from the majority of the leading players as all but two of the top-13 departed by Thursday evening.

There is no time to play yourself into a matchplay tournament. Though a welcome diversion from the incessant week-in, week-out diet of 72-hole strokeplay, its very uniqueness possibly works against it, with excuses abounding about 18-hole matchplay being too short a contest and a feeling that everything will be back to normal next week.

In the four years of the event only two top-20 players have reached the final, both in 2000 when Darren Clarke beat Tiger Woods. Nevertheless, the sponsors, Accenture, announced yesterday that they have extended their contract for another four years.

However, the course, location, date and format have all become talking points. La Costa, with its ropey early season greens, has new owners who are in discussion with the PGA Tour about continuing the event. Though minor tinkering would produce a fine test for a strokeplay tournament, the layout lacks the risk-reward drama to enliven a matchplay contest.

La Costa also suffers from there being a big tournament just down the road at Torrey Pines just two weeks before. More fundamentally, it would help to be in a market that understood matchplay golf, like Britain or Ireland, and so would bring in crowds from Wednesday onwards. But from comments made by the USPGA Tour commissioner Tim Finchem, it is unlikely the event will move out of America again for fear of a repeat of the mass withdrawals from last year's event in Australia.

Then, preposterously, the event was played on the first weekend of the year. Even now the tournament is too early in the year when the players have not really go going. It needs to be held in the heat of the season, perhaps in May, a month lacking a major championship.

As for the format, it would no doubt appeal to the sponsors to seed the top-16 into the round of 32. With two qualifying rounds, the starting field could be increased to 80 but the stars would only have one chance of losing before the weekend, something for which the television companies would be grateful.

ACCENTURE WORLD MATCHPLAY CHAMPIONSHIP (Carlsbad, Cal) Final: K Sutherland (US) bt S McCarron (US) 1 up.