Golf at the highest level has become such a global game it’s tougher than ever to pinpoint the best professional tour, the most fertile country for world-class players, the most impressive young talent, or even, in the absence of Tiger Woods, the top player.

With Woods out indefinitely, the game is a land grab contested by old reliables like Kenny Perry, 49, Steve Stricker, 42, and Vijay Singh, 46; global stars like Padraig Harrington and Geoff Ogilvy; and several would-be No. 1s including (but not limited to) Ryo Ishikawa, Dustin Johnson, Martin Kaymer, Rory McIlroy and Michael Sim.

No tournament better exemplifies the game’s current state than the frenzied free-for-all that is the WGC-Accenture Match Play Championship at 7,849-yard Ritz-Carlton Golf Club in Marana, Ariz., starting Wednesday. “There are no easy draws in this event,” said Lee Westwood, the second seed this week, who will play countryman Chris Wood in the first round. “[These are the] top players in the world. So everybody’s quite capable of shooting a 63 or 62 out there.”

The Accenture will mark the first truly global gathering of the year, a season in which one of the biggest stories has been the shift in the balance of power between the U.S. and Europe. While fields on the PGA Tour’s West Coast Swing have been largely unremarkable and at times dismal, the European Tour has flourished. That’s only partly because of American players traveling overseas for appearance fees. More importantly it owes to a new look atop the World Ranking that’s been years in the making. Of the top 20 players in the ranking, only six are Americans, and two (Woods and the vacationing Phil Mickelson) are not in the field this week.

Nine years after he won the tournament as the 55 seed, Stricker takes the top seed into the Accenture, but the prohibitive favorite is Ogilvy, a two-time Accenture winner and three-time finalist who has racked up an incredible 17-2 career record in this event.

Then again, perhaps the favorite is England’s Ross Fisher, who advanced to the tournament’s final four last season and later won the Volvo World Match Play.

The favorite certainly wouldn’t seem to be Westwood, who has never advanced past the second round in nine Accenture starts, many of his losses coming in extra holes. Unlike those years, though, he is coming into this week on a good note, having won the Race to Dubai to end 2009 and notched two top-three finishes in his last two starts.

When Westwood left home Sunday, and his 5-year-old daughter Poppy asked him when he would return, he wasn’t sure what to tell her and her older brother Samuel. “I said, ‘Historically, Thursday; optimistically, Monday,’ ” he said at his press conference at Dove Mountain, prompting laughter. “They looked at me quizzically.”

Theories on match play run the gamut. Do you play the man or the course? Is gamesmanship important, and how is it best and most subtly deployed?

Johnson, coming off his victory at Pebble Beach, said on Tuesday that he didn’t know and didn’t much care who he’s playing beyond Camilo Villegas in the first round. The assembled media were incredulous; hadn’t he bothered to look at a bracket? “If one is sitting next to me at breakfast, of course I’ll look at it,” Johnson said. “But I’m not going to go out of my way to find the bracket to see who is in it. Everyone here is good. They don’t make it here because of a fluke. So it really doesn’t matter who you’re playing, it’s going to be a tough match and you’re going to have to play well.”

The winner of the Johnson-Villegas match will play either Alexander Noren of Sweden or the one guy everyone would just as soon avoid in Tucson: Ogilvy. That said, it’s conceivable that Ogilvy hasn’t been getting much quality sleep or practice time. His wife Juli delivered the couple’s third child, Harvey Jack Ogilvy, last Thursday.

Most intriguing at the Accenture are the rookies, who will show soon enough what they think of the quirky format. Ishikawa and Sim play each other for the right to face Stricker or Ross McGowan in the second round. Ryan Moore, a match-play terror as an amateur, will face Ernie Els, a match-play terror in Wentworth, England.

As always in this format, someone will shoot 66 and lose, and someone will card a 73 and win. “I think you need more luck in match play than in stroke play,” Westwood said. “You can’t ease your way around-you have to come out all guns blazing.”

• In other action on the PGA Tour, David Duval tries to maintain momentum from last week’s runner-up finish at the Mayakoba Classic in Cancun, Mexico, golf’s version of the NIT. The Mayakoba, played at one of the sweetest spots if not the sweetest spot on the Tour schedule, is famous for reviving careers, most notably that of 2008 champion Brian Gay, who went on to win twice on Tour in 2009 and is in the field for this week’s Accenture.

• Speaking of coming out with guns blazing, the LPGA Tour kicks off at the Honda PTT LPGA Thailand this week. Number one-ranked Lorena Ochoa, the defending champion, headlines a strong field that also includes No. 2 Jiyai Shin, Michelle Wie, Paula Creamer, Morgan Pressel and Christina Kim. The Honda PTT will mark the beginning of the LPGA’s new agreement with the Golf Channel, which will give the circuit a much-needed permanent home.

• On the Champions Tour, Tommy Armour III will try to stay hot at the Allianz Championship, starting Friday at The Old Course at Broken Sound in Boca Raton, Fla. Armour shot a final-round 61 to finish runner-up in his Champions debut at the ACE Group Classic last week. Michael Allen, who tied for fifth place at the PGA Tour’s Farmers Insurance Open last month, and Bernhard Langer are also in the field.

MARANA, Ariz. (AP) — Geoff Ogilvy has not played a competitive round of golf in nearly a month. His heart is still at home, where his wife gave birth to their third child less than a week ago.

At any other tournament, it might not be the ideal preparation to defend a title.

The Match Play Championship is different.

Ogilvy came to this event in 2006 at La Costa feeling good about his game. Ten times that week, he watched an opponent stand over a putt to eliminate him. By the end of the week, he was holding the trophy.

A year ago at Dove Mountain, he wasn’t sure he could get his first tee shot in the fairway. He struggled through the first two rounds, got better as the week went on, and in the championship match felt it was the best he had ever played.

“If this week doesn’t go well, it won’t be because of how I’m playing today,” Ogilvy said Tuesday on the eve of the first World Golf Championship of the year. “It will be because someone plays better than me.”

That’s how it is in golf’s most fickle format.

Stories abound of players who make seven birdies and lose, and players who don’t make any and win. It all starts Wednesday on the Ritz-Carlton Golf Club at Dove Mountain, when half of the 64-man field will be eliminated.

Ogilvy is among three champions who were not among the top 50 seeds. He was No. 52 when he won in 2006, while Steve Stricker was No. 55 in 2001 and Kevin Sutherland was No. 62 a year later.

Stricker’s fortunes have changed mightily, and he comes into this Match Play Championship as the No. 1 seed, but only because Tiger Woods has not returned from his indefinite leave. Phil Mickelson also is taking the week off for a family holiday that previously was postponed because of his wife’s treatment for breast cancer.

Stricker remembers what it was like to go to Australia in 2001 as one of the higher seeds. He asked a couple of caddies if they were interested in working for him, and they all turned him down. Stricker wound up taking a friend from Wisconsin, Tom Mitchell, then mowed down six guys to win the title.

Even as the No. 1 seed, his expectations aren’t much different.

“I don’t think you can look past anyone in this tournament,” Stricker said.

For him, that starts with Ross McGowan of England, in the first round. Lee Westwood is the No. 2 seed and plays Chris Wood in an All-England match, while third-seeded Jim Furyk plays former Ryder Cup teammate Scott Verplank and fourth-seeded Martin Kaymer faces Chad Campbell.

Ogilvy, who won the season-opening PGA Tour event at Kapalua, is the No. 10 seed and opens with Alexander Noren of Sweden.

Even though Woods has won this tournament three times, no one has a higher winning percentage than Ogilvy. Along with his two victories, he lost in the championship match three years ago and was beaten in the first round in 2008.

His overall record is 17-2, which in his way of thinking, makes him a better photographer than a painter.

“It’s a weird tournament,” he said. “I obviously enjoy coming to this tournament because it’s been good to me three out of the last four years. But there’s an element that’s slightly out of your control. Seventy-two holes is a big picture to paint. You can have a bad first nine holes and still win the tournament.”

He mentioned Woods shooting 40 on the front nine of the 1997 Masters and winning by 12 shots.

“This, if you have a bad first nine holes, suddenly you’re out. Bye. See you,” Ogilvy said. “It’s a tournament that you almost can’t have result expectations. You can feel good about your game. But I don’t think you’re in complete control at the end of the week.”

If he loses early, it would not be all bad.

Ogilvy lives about two hours north of Phoenix, where wife Julie is home with their three children, including the latest arrival. A son, Harvey Jack, was born on Feb. 11.

“Everyone is happy and healthy, everyone is perfect,” he said. “I feel like I’ve continued my offseason, and this is almost the start of it. It’s been really a nice three weeks. I spent it at home with my kids. They got to meet their new brother and stuff. I’m coming here pretty refreshed, so I’m ready to go.”

He can only hope he’s not leaving sooner than he wants.

Ogilvy is among the few players who have bothered to study the brackets, or at least confessed to looking at them. He tried to figure out which quadrant had the strongest road to the semifinals, only to realize none was particularly easy.

“Every match is difficult,” said Paul Casey, who lost to Ogilvy in the championship match last year. “Everybody here is capable of winning this tournament. I think you’ll hear that from a lot of guys. You just need a little bit of luck, and you need to play some good golf.”

MARANA, Ariz. — The controversy sparked by Phil Mickelson, John Daly and other golfers who recently started using Ping Eye2 wedges made before 1990 has created a problem for Hunter Mahan.

Mahan has been using a pre-1990 58° Ping Eye2 lob wedge for years. He likes the look and feel of the club, but this week at the WGC-Accenture Match Play Championship he would be the only player in the field using an “old groove” Eye2.

That doesn’t sit well with Mahan, because he knows that if he does well using the old wedge some people might question whether his success was due to his skill or the grooves.

So this week Mahan has been practicing with an Eye2 lob wedge that is identical to his old club except that it contains grooves that conform to the new USGA standards. Tuesday morning on the range he had three Eye2 wedges in his bag. The two copper-colored clubs in the photo have the old grooves. The silver-colored wedge that you can partially see has the new grooves. 

“I don’t want the focus to be on the grooves,” he told me. “It’s really kind of unfortunate, but right now the players are taking the blame for all of this.”

Mahan said he has not made up his mind which club he is going to use in his match Wednesday against South Africa’s Charl Schwartzel. But from his tone and body language, I sensed that he really wants to avoid any controversy.

See-Try-Buy: Learn more about Ping clubs, and schedule your fitting with GolfTEC.

Related: Follow David Dusek on Twitter

(Photo by David Dusek)

Hot

1. The Clambake. Perfect weather, a smashing new golf course, Sunday dramatics at Pebble, a compelling winner … it’s hard to imagine there will be a better non-major all year.

2. Match Play Wednesday. It’s one of my favorite days of the year, a sunrise-to-sunset day that is the ultimate physical and mental test. And that’s just for the viewers at home!

3. Freddy. It had been seven years since his last victory. And it’s 17 years since he was last a dominant player. It will be fun to see how deep he can take this. (But beware of TA3 …)

4. David Duval. He’s an enigma rolled in a mystery in wraparound sunglasses. If he can come back from the abyss to win again, it will be one of golf’s most amazing reinventions.

5. The LPGA. Another tournament is about to go on the schedule — in Malaysia! — and with the PGA Tour off to such a sluggish start this is a great chance for the women to steal some of the spotlight, beginning with this week’s season-opener in Thailand. Here’s the best part: with the new Golf Channel deal kicking in, we’ll actually get to see what happens over there.

Not

1. Paul Goydos. It’s mortifying to make a 9 on your local muni in front of a couple of buddies. To do so on national TV and give away a tournament in the process? Even the exceedingly glib Goydos seemed at a loss for words.

2. Phil Mickelson. Will someone please tell Lefty the 2010 season has begun?

3. Rory’s back. Maybe this is just a little tweak that will soon be forgotten. But back woes are the game’s biggest red flag, especially for a young, supple prodigy like McIlroy. Here’s hoping for a speedy recovery.

4. Pebble’s 14th green. One guy makes a 9, he’s a chop. Three guys do it and something’s not right. There’s nowhere to miss on this tiny target, but thankfully the USGA’s Mike Davis is already coming up with some tweaks to avoid an Open folly.

5. Idiotic Tiger rumors. Yeah, sure, we really believed he was going to come back for the Match Play Championship. Which is sponsored by the company that unceremoniously dumped him as a spokesman. And this is a guy who still holds grudges dating to his teens. We used to say stuff like this was too stupid to print. This rumor was too stupid for the Internet.

Officials from Ping and the USGA met Wednesday in hopes of working out a reasonable solution to the controversy surrounding the use of Ping Eye2s with square grooves. At 3:16 pm Thursday I got the following e-mail statement from the USGA:

Officials from the USGA and PING met yesterday in Dallas to discuss the use of PING EYE2 clubs on the PGA Tour.

USGA President Jim Hyler issued the following statement today:

“We met with representatives from PING yesterday. Our conversation with PING regarding the status of the PING EYE2 irons on the major professional American tours was productive, and we are hopeful that a solution can be found that respects and reflects the best interests of golfers and the game.” 

Eight minutes later I got an e-mail statement from Ping saying:

“We had a productive meeting with the USGA yesterday regarding the PING EYE2 groove debate on the PGA Tour,” said PING Chairman & CEO John Solheim. “I’m encouraged by their willingness to openly discuss some of the challenges the golf industry faces relating to equipment issues. We left the meeting with an understanding we would continue to seek a solution that benefits golfers and acknowledges the importance innovation plays in the game.”

As Yogi Berra said, “It ain’t over ’til it’s over.” And this baby is far from over.

See-Try-Buy: Learn more about Ping clubs and schedule your fitting with GolfTec.

Related: Follow David Dusek on Twitter

(Photo: Phil Mickelson’s Ping Eye2 lob wedge, which he’s no longer carrying. By Robert Beck/SI)

PEBBLE BEACH, Calif. (AP) — Dustin Johnson is powering his away around the Monterey Peninsula. Paul Goydos is poking along. Two golfers who couldn’t be any more different were tied for the lead Saturday in the Pebble Beach National Pro-Am.

Johnson reached the 595-yard opening hole at Spyglass Hill with a hybrid and made a 20-foot eagle from the fringe to send him on his way to an 8-under 64, despite a three-putt bogey on his final hole.

Goydos reached the 513-yard second hole with a 3-wood and made an 8-foot eagle putt, then birdied two of the final three holes for a 64 at Pebble Beach.

They were at 18-under 196 and were four shots clear of anyone else.

Johnson is leading the field this week in driving distance at 310.7 yards. Goydos, who is averaging 262.7 yards off the tee, was asked if he would just ignore Johnson’s power off the tee.

“No, I fully panic,” Goydos said. “You know, it is what it is. I don’t know if ‘ignore’ is the right word, but you appreciate. I’m going to appreciate his play, but you go out and play your game, too. I have do things differently than he does, and he’s got to do things differently than I do.”

J.B. Holmes and Bryce Molder each had a 68 at Spyglass Hill, while Matt Jones had a 66 on the Shore Course at Monterey Peninsula. They were tied for third at 14-under 200.

David Duval had a 67 and was tied for seventh. Phil Mickelson had a 69 at Pebble Beach and was eight shots out of the lead.

The biggest star Saturday was the weather, some of the most spectacular conditions this tournament has seen in years. Along the coast of Pebble Beach, huge swells crashed against the rocks and the sea wall.

“The ocean was angry today,” Goydos said. “What they’ve got here is God’s gift to golf.”

Goydos’ game isn’t always so pretty, although there is no disputing how he reached the top of the leaderboard. On the par-5 sixth hole, his second shot from the rough barely cleared the hill and nearly went into a bunker. With an awkward stance, he did well to get it on the green. And after a two-putt par, he said to his partners, “That never looked like it was going to be better than a 5.”

One hole later, with a stiff ocean breeze at his back and a downhill shot to a green 97 yards away, he hit sand wedge to 2 feet.

Over at Spyglass, traditionally the toughest course on the rotation, Johnson was wailing away. The defending champion had two eagles and played the par 5s in 6 under, and he had a chance at the course record of 62 until charging his birdie putt past the hole and missing the comeback putt for par.

“Length is not an issue,” Johnson said. “Doesn’t play very long for me. If I’m hitting it in the fairway, then it definitely plays right into my hands, because I can get to all the par 5s there.”

Asked which courses plays long for him, Johnson said with a fixed smile, “Not too many of ‘em.”

On this glorious day with a stiff breeze, Spyglass was the place to be. Pebble Beach and the Shore Course at Monterey Peninsula, a par 70 and newcomer to the rotation, are exposed along the ocean. Except for five holes, Spyglass is sheltered by pines and cypress.

Johnson and Goydos couldn’t recall playing with each other before, and even if they did, it’s not like they would have been together given the difference in their tee shots.

But as much as Goydos appreciates the power, Johnson appreciates how Goydos can score.

“His game is definitely a little bit different than mind, and he finds a way to get it done,” Johnson said. “It doesn’t matter how far you hit it or where you hit it. You’ve just got to find a way to get it in the hole. Whoever can get it in the hole tomorrow is going to come out with the victory.”

Few players are more self-deprecating than Goydos, notable among other quotes for once saying, “Tiger is trying to win 18 majors. I’m trying to play in 18 majors.”

But he did well to hold his own when asked if Johnson was a better player as they head into the final round.

“He’s won twice in two years. I’ve won twice in 18,” Goydos said. “‘Better’ is an interesting word. He’s definitely off to a much better start than I had. There’s a slight curve because I’ve been out so long. So if he’d won 10 times after 18 years, the answer is ‘yes.’ But right now? I don’t know.”

Then he paused before adding, “He’s definitely showing signs of it.”

Divots: Goydos and Hertz executive Bob Stuart had a one-shot lead in the pro-am competition. The top 25 teams advanced to the final round Sunday. Johnson or Goydos only need to break par on Sunday to break the 72-hole scoring record of 268, first set by Mark O’Meara in 1997 and matched by Phil Mickelson in 2007.

Using a loophole in the new groove rules, several players, including John Daly and Phil Mickelson, have made the controversial decision to play Ping Eye2 wedges in recent PGA Tour events, prompting some criticism from fellow Tour pros. John Solheim, Ping’s chairman and CEO, issued a statement on the issue last night.

“Over the last several weeks we’ve watched with great interest the impact of the Ping Eye2 and its role in the USGA’s 2010 Groove Regulation. We’ve read and heard numerous inaccurate reports from various sources, including several PGA Tour Professionals, about the new groove regulation, specifically that “U” or “Square” grooves are “banned” as part of the regulation. As the USGA states on its website:

“A common misconception is that “V” shaped grooves will be required under the new specifications and that “U” shaped grooves will no longer be allowed.  This is not the case.”

This misconception has contributed to Ping Eye2 irons being characterized as “non-conforming” or “illegal” and has created a division among many of the players on the PGA Tour.

We’re thankful that the PGA Tour helped clarify this issue in a statement last weekend:

“Under the Rules of Golf and the 2010 Condition of Competition for Groove Specifications promulgated by the USGA, pre-1990 Ping Eye2 irons are permitted for play and any player who uses them in PGA TOUR sanctioned events taking place in jurisdictions of the USGA is not in violation of the Rules of Golf; and

Because the use of pre-1990 Ping Eye2 irons is permitted for play, public comments or criticisms characterizing their use as a violation of the Rules of Golf as promulgated by the USGA are inappropriate at best.”

Naturally, this entire episode takes us back more than 20 years when our company took a stand against both the USGA and PGA Tour over their attempts to ban Ping Eye2 irons because of the grooves. In an effort to protect the interests of the millions of Ping Eye2 owners who had purchased their clubs in good faith and for the good of the game, we negotiated an agreement with the USGA which “grandfathered” all Ping Eye2 irons manufactured prior to April 1, 1990.

In 1993, the PGA Tour agreed they “will not in the future adopt or attempt to adopt any separate PGA Tour rule which would prohibit the use of U-grooves on any golf club if such PGA Tour rule differed from a USGA rule.”

When the USGA proposed the New Groove Rule more than two years ago, we reminded them of their agreement relative to the PING EYE2 irons. At the time, I was vehemently against any new groove rule for a variety of reasons and advised both the

USGA and PGA Tour in a letter dated July 31, 2007 that what is happening on the PGA Tour today was very much a possibility.

The recent statement from the PGA Tour and several PGA Tour players that they could invoke a “local rule” required us to remind the PGA Tour of the terms of the agreement which prohibits them from straying from a rule that “differed from a USGA rule.”

While I fully expect the PGA Tour to honor this agreement, I’m willing to discuss a workable solution to this matter that would benefit the game and respect the role innovation has played over the long history of golf.”

See-Try-Buy: Learn more about Ping clubs and schedule a fitting with GolfTec.

Follow David Dusek on Twitter

(Photo by Lenny Ignelzi/AP Photos)

The shot wasn’t heard round the world, but the reverberations are still being felt some two decades later.

From the right rough on the 16th hole at the TPC-Eagle Trace in Coral Springs, Fl., 26-year-old Mark Calcavecchia “gashed a shot out of the hay” with his Ping Eye 2 8-iron that landed on a peninsula green and sucked back. Calc went on to win the 1987 Honda Classic, and become the poster child for a war on square grooves and trigger a trial that Karsten Manufacturing eventually won against the PGA Tour.

Twenty-two years later, the Eye 2 has reared its ugly clubhead, triggering “Groovegate” and a debate that continues to rage at this week’s Northern Trust Open. Calcavecchia is nowhere in sight, but his presence was felt as Scott McCarron and Phil Mickelson hugged it out after lawsuits were threatened, the tour’s commissioner was huddling with a Solheim in hopes of finding an accord (Tim Finchem and John Solheim replacing Deane Beman and Karsten Solheim); and just for old time’s sake, Fred Couples was contemplating throwing the same Eye 2 in his bag that he used around the same time Calcavecchia was causing such an uproar.

Len Decof, the attorney who represented Karsten, was getting calls. All we need in this flashback is Austin Powers as the narrator, or Calcavecchia coming back at age 49 to remind us that nothing’s really changed.

“I caused the whole groove controversy,” Calcavecchia said from his West Coast home in Phoenix earlier this week. “Tom Watson and Jack Nicklaus went crazy and that was the whole start of it. Now [the equipment companies] go through millions of dollars in retooling [irons for tour players], they grandfather in the grooves that [caused the controversy] in the first place.”

Calcavecchia opened the season at the Sony Open with an Eye 2 sand wedge and L wedge that Ping made for him with legal grooves. He swapped out one of his old Beryllium L wedges made in 1987 for the Bob Hope, but the greens were overly receptive at Torrey Pines so he switched back. Both times he missed the cut. “The greens were already soft. The last thing you needed was too much juice,” Calcavecchia said. “You don’t want a boatload of spin. Believe me, if I didn’t use the new grooves, I would have been sucking back balls 50 feet at Torrey Pines.”

Disgusted with his play, Calcavecchia decided to skip the Northern Trust Open and the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am. Had he played, he would have used the approved wedges — and not because of the accusations that players exercising the Eye 2 loophole were “cheating,” or at the very least, not living up to the spirit of the rules.

The Eye 2, once his trusty weapon, was hard to figure.

“You’d get hellacious juice on one shot,” Calcavecchia said. “You’d jam the next one because you don’t want to be 10 feet short again.”

Calcavecchia knew Mickelson was just being Mickelson, trying to prove a point more than he was gaining a competitive advantage.

“That’s Phil,” Calcavecchia said. “No, he’s not cheating. He’s going along with the rule, whoever made the rule. I don’t think it’s cheating. On the other hand, it’s a stupid rule. You’re still allowed to use the juiciest, squarest grooves ever made, which makes no sense to me.”

At the same time he could relate to what Mickelson was going through before “proving his point” and taking the Eye2 out of his Callaway bag.

“People looked at me like I was straight cheating,” Calcavecchia said. “They made me the bad guy.”

LOS ANGELES (AP) — Even with a big lead, Steve Stricker expected a tough day. Everyone else expected him to win.

Turns out both sides were right.

Stricker watched a six-shot lead slip to two after just five holes Sunday at Riviera before he steadied himself and closed with a 1-under 70 for a two-shot victory over Luke Donald in the Northern Trust Open.

His fourth PGA Tour victory in his last 15 starts moved him up to No. 2 in the world ranking.

Stricker won for the eighth time in his career, and once again welled up with tears after the victory. This time, all it took was a reminder of where he was four years ago, when he lost his PGA Tour card.

“I remember where I was and where I am now,” Stricker said. “It doesn’t get any better.”

Stricker didn’t make it easy on himself, having to grind for pars as Donald kept pouring in birdies. But after Donald missed two short birdie attempts, Stricker fired off two straight birdies to restore a comfortable margin.

He finished at 16-under 268 and earned $1.152 million to go over $25 million for his career.

Donald made birdie on the 17th to again trim the lead to two shots, but that was as close as he ever got. He closed with a 66. Dustin Johnson had a 66 and J.B. Holmes made a late surge for a 67 to tie for third.

“It was hard today,” Stricker said. “I aged a lot out there. It was a grind from the get-go.”

Phil Mickelson, trying to become the first player to win three straight years at Riviera, had a 73 and finished 14 shots behind.

Even as he left the course Saturday night leading by five shots, Stricker said he expected a long, tough day.

The long day came from having to return in the morning darkness to finish off his third round. With temperatures in the 40s before the sun climbed over Sunset Boulevard, he rolled in a 30-foot birdie putt on the 15th, hit 7-iron to 4 feet for birdie on the 16th and led by seven shots until a bogey on the 18th, his first in 32 holes. Stricker completed a 66 for a six-shot lead.

The tough part?

Stricker missed a 5-foot birdie putt on the easy opening hole and looked tight over the next hour as Donald applied enormous pressure. Donald had birdie chances inside 20 feet for the first eight holes, converting three of them. His 6-footer at No. 5 pulled him within two shots, and he followed that with a tee shot to 10 feet on the sixth.

Donald had the momentum. He just never had the lead.

He missed the birdie chance at No. 6, missed another birdie putt from 8 feet on the next hole, and that was his best shot. Stricker birdied the next two holes from inside 10 feet to take a three-shot lead to the back nine.

Stricker still didn’t look as good as he did the first three rounds, missing greens to the left. But he had five consecutive one-putt greens and continued to get himself out of minor jams.

This is the second time Stricker has gone to No. 2 in the world he also got there in September after winning in Boston although he likely still would have to win at three more times to catch Tiger Woods, who is out indefinitely as he tries to save his marriage.

Half of Stricker’s eight career victories have come in the last eight months dating to his playoff win at Colonial. He turns 43 later this month, and shows no sign of letting up.

Kevin Na shot a 66 to tie for 10th, enough to get him into the top 64 and qualify for the Match Play Championship in two weeks.

DIVOTS: The only time Stricker has not cried after a victory was last year at the Shark Shootout, during the silly season. … Anthony Kim had two double bogeys on the front nine and closed with a 78 in his first PGA Tour event of the year. … Ben Curtis missed birdie putts inside 15 feet on his last two holes. To have made either one of them likely would have qualified him for the Match Play Championship in two weeks. … Paul Goydos had a 65 to match the low score of the final round. Asked on NBC Sports if he was surprised to have been made a Ryder Cup assistant captain, Goydos went from “astonished” to “flabbergasted” to “giddy.”