Golf: European Hopes Fade

Cancel the ticker-tape parade through the streets of Strasbourg. After a first day littered with European victories, the Accenture World Match Play Championship reverted to type yesterday as the usual US tour suspects began to assert themselves around the La Costa links, a classically American golf course.

This meant the departure of six out of seven European Ryder Cup players who made it through to the last 32, as well as that of Graeme McDowell, conqueror of Darren Clarke. So much for the burgeoning sense of superiority in the wake of successive victories over the United States.

Only Ian Poulter matched the heroics of last September at Oakland Hills, coming back from two down with five holes to play to beat Rory Sabbatini.

As for the other Europeans, it was one heavy defeat after another, with Lee Westwood, Sergio García and Luke Donald all failing to put up much resistance against Davis Love, Adam Scott and Nick O'Hern.

Poulter has looked the best of the European bunch all week, having accumulated 17 birdies and one eagle over the course of 54 holes.

After thumping Jim Furyk in Thursday's first round, he repeated the dose on Stuart Appleby yesterday morning. But in the afternoon he ran into Sabbatini, a gum-chewing, mid-ranking, big-hitting, fast-talking American whose cocky demeanour encourages the thought that if George W Bush played on the PGA Tour he would be Rory Sabbatini.

Mind you, the kid can scrap. One down after Poulter's birdie at the 1st hole, he more than made up for inferior ball-striking with the kind of escapology usually found on the stages of Las Vegas.

The 7th hole was a prime example. After hitting his drive into a river, Sabbatini had to drop his ball into deep rough, from where he somehow made a par four. Poulter, meanwhile, airmailed the flag from the middle of the fairway and made bogey. Instead of going two up, the Englishman was level. Oh, the joys of matchplay.

But Poulter also proved he could scrap, recovering from a two-hole deficit to take the match - easily the best contest of the day - all the way to the final green, where par was sufficient to see off the American.

"He's a cocky guy," he said of Sabbatini afterwards. "That's why it is so nice to win. I am properly happy."

Still, Poulter's great play at Carlsbad is a reminder that he has got more than a swanky wardrobe and a decent barber.

By the 1950s standards of the 21st century golfing establishment, he is defined as an "outrageous" figure. This is not only silly, it is a grossly unfair distraction from the real story about the 29-year-old Englishman. He is, as one US member of the gallery following his match against Appleby suggested, "the real deal".

Meanwhile in the world of global management consultancy, medical teams were called to the boardroom of the tournament sponsor Accenture after the world No1 Vijay Singh was dumped out of the tournament before lunch by Jay Haas. And as if that wasn't bad enough, Singh was quickly followed by Tiger Woods, who lost to O'Hern.

Woods has made this trophy something of a personal keepsake and his presence in the later rounds guaranteed high television audiences in the States, no doubt salving Accenture's pain at shelling out $7m (£3.6m) to have the company name attached to the event. Needless to say, hopes were high among the suits for a clash of the titans.

Oh dear, oh dear. O'Hern and Haas are both gentlemen and fine golfers but, as any half-decent management consultant would tell you, they ain't worth $7m of anyone's money.