Accenture Match Play - Preview

Here it is - THE BRACKET.

It's not March Madness yet, that glorious time of the year when 64 college basketball teams try to beat each other up until there's only one left standing.

No, it's February Madness, when the top 64 ranked professional golfers in the world are seeded and paired, and over the course of 5 days and 126 holes each will try and navigate the tournament bracket to come out as the victor in a 36-hole final match on Sunday.

Yes, this is match play. Each hole is played as its own entity, and each round consists of matches between two players. The player that wins more holes than the other before finishing all eighteen holes is declared the winner. If the players end up tied, they go back to the first hole and continue playing until either player wins a hole.

Scoring is kept by determining how far up one player is over the other - if you've won 4 holes, and your opponent has won 3, then you are 1UP. If each player has won the same or halved (tied) as many holes, the score is deemed "All Square," or again, tied.

It sounds more complicated than it is, and it makes for one of the best PGA tournaments of the year.

I've been saying all week that I think Tiger will win - I don't expect to see a whole lot of rust, and Tiger is just too good at taking moments and making them memorable. A win after nine-months of recovery from knee surgery, 9 months after winning the US Open on a broken leg, would be a pretty good bookend.

I'll have more regarding the breakdown of the bracket throughout the day. Do what you can to watch the coverage this week, it's always an exciting event to follow.