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sports Monday 28 March 2022
Scheffler, Kisner advance to championship at Match Play

(AP) — Scottie Scheffler Johnson won the 12th with mentum to start the back
reached the championship a birdie. Scheffler, despite nine.
round at the Dell Technolo- leading 4 up, curiously He was left of the 10th
gies Match Play for the sec- went with driver on the green, left of the cart path
ond straight year, this time reachable par-4 13th over and on packed dirt when
with a lot more at stake. a portion of Lake Austin he bounced a pitch so per-
A year ago, he was trying and came up short in the fectly that it rolled out to 5
for his first PGA Tour victory. water. Johnson hit it tight feet for par to avoid going
On Sunday, holding on to on the next two holes, mak- 2 down. Then, he holed a
beat Dustin Johnson put ing from 10 feet and 4 feet 40-foot birdie putt on the
him one win away from go- for birdies. par-3 11th. Kisner went from
ing to No. 1 in the world. He was 1 down and had bunker to water on the par-
Scheffler took advantage all the momentum when 5 12th, and Conners had
of Johnson’s mishaps and Scheffler hit his second on the lead for the first time.
balky putter to go 5 up the par-5 16th, uphill and Kisner squared the match
through 11 holes, then had into the wind, to about 12 with a par on the 14th, and
to hold off a ferocious ral- feet. He missed the eagle the decisive moment came
ly at Austin Country Club. attempt. Johnson, who was on the par-3 17th. Both
He regained control when in a bunker, blasted out to were just off the green. Kis-
Johnson missed a 4-foot 4 feet. But his short putt ner lagged to a foot. Con-
birdie putt on the 16th hole spun out of the cup, and ners faced a downhill putt
to fall 2 down, and then he never recovered. and hit it 8 feet by, missing
closed him out when John- Behind them, Kisner stayed the comebacker to fall 1 used the ridge behind the of the green with his drive,
son’s 15-foot birdie putt 1 up by making a 25-foot down. hole, running it up 25 feet missed the eagle chip and
caught the lip. par on the eighth hole, and On the 18th, Kisner from and watching it roll back the 10-foot birdie, conced-
The path doesn’t get much Conners seized the mo- short of the green expertly to 4 feet. Conners, just left ing the match. q
easier for Scheffler. Next
up Sunday afternoon was
Kevin Kisner, who outlasted
Corey Conners of Canada
in a match so tight no one
led by more than one hole.
Kisner joined Tiger Woods
and Geoff Ogilvy as the
only players to reach the
championship match at
least three times since this
World Golf Championship
began in 1999. He lost in
the final in 2018 and won
the following year. His re-
cord is 22-6-1 on this Pete
Dye design, a winning rate
second only to Ogilvy.
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Scheffler was solid as usual,
and Johnson was the worst
he had been all week, es-
pecially on the green where
Scheffler twice missed putts
inside 10 feet and still had
a 3-up lead through seven
holes.
He nearly holed out from
the fairway on the 10th,
Johnson missed another
putt on the 11th and Schef-
fler was 5 up and on his
way. And then it changed.