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Watch: Rory McIlroy drubbed by Ian Poulter at WGC-Dell Technologies Match Play

Just days after a report surfaced that he’d added coach Pete Cowen to his team, McIlroy looked out of sorts again at Austin Country Club.

AUSTIN, Texas — Standing on the 12th tee with a picturesque view of the iconic Pennybacker Bridge, Ian Poulter watched his drive safely hit the fairway, flipped his driver, grinned and let out a giggle.

Why wouldn’t the typically jovial Poulter be beaming? He stood 3 up in his opening match of the WGC-Dell Technologies Match Play event, in firm control despite coming into Wednesday as a decided underdog.

His opponent, World No. 11 Rory McIlroy, wasn’t sharing Poulter’s chipper disposition.

Just days after a report that he’d added coach Pete Cowen to his team in an effort to right a struggling ship, McIlroy looked out of sorts again at Austin Country Club.

Despite booming drives that consistently rolled well past Poulter’s, McIlroy fell 6 and 5 in an uninspiring showing that put him in a tough spot with two round-robin matches remaining.

Down goes Rory. @IanJamesPoulter defeats McIlroy 6&5 in Round 1 @DellMatchPlay. pic.twitter.com/H7R9wdnSET

— PGA TOUR (@PGATOUR) March 24, 2021

For McIlroy, it’s been a roller coaster of sorts through the past few months. The former World No. 1 isn’t in a slump, per se, but he certainly isn’t in complete control of his game like he once was. McIlroy has four top 20 finishes in six starts this season, but he’s missed a pair of cuts, the most recent at the Players Championship. He also posted a final-round 76 at the Arnold Palmer Invitational while firmly in the hunt.

And he continued his erratic play through the early portion of Wednesday’s round, first three-putting from inside 20 feet on the fourth hole, then finding water in the most unconventional way on the following hole — by bouncing a tee shot off a cart path and into a swimming pool.

Poulter said he expects McIlroy to improve under Cowen’s eye, but he was happy to apply some pressure to his friend and earn the victory.

“Obviously, Pete’s going to be working exclusively with Rory on his game. I think there’s a couple of areas of his game which I’m sure he wants to kind of firm up a little bit and obviously, he missed a couple of tee shots left. From that point, he was trying to hit a kind of a bit of a hold-up cut,” Poulter said of his friend. “But it’s Rory, it doesn’t take a lot for Rory to spark up pretty quickly and I wasn’t surprised with anything, I just felt that I kind of, I had done a pretty decent job of putting him under pressure, I made it difficult for him.”

Meanwhile, Poulter arrived in Austin fresh off missing two straight cuts and without a top 25 finish this season. The 60th seed looked confident, however, as he took advantage of all McIlroy’s early mistakes.

“I played well and obviously the score line’s pretty flattering, to be honest with you. But I kept Rory under pressure and I made it difficult for him,” Poulter said. “Yeah, he hit a couple of loose shots, but putting the ball in pretty tight and taking control of a match, I had to do that against Rory.”

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WGC-Dell Technologies Match Play Wednesday matches, tee times, how to watch

From tee times to TV and streaming info, here’s everything you need to know for Wednesday’s matches at the WGC-Dell Technologies Match Play.

Who’s ready for some match play?

A bracket quite literally packed with the world’s best players is set for this week’s World Golf Championships-Dell Technologies Match Play at Austin Country Club in Austin, Texas.

In fact, 64 of the top 69 players on the Official World Golf Ranking are competing this week, including the top 12 in the Golfweek/Sagarin ranking. A grand total of $10.25 million will be paid out over the week, with the winner taking home a cool $1.82 million.

Check out the Wednesday matches and tee times below, as well as the full broadcast, streaming and radio schedule for the week in Austin. All times listed are Eastern Standard Time.

Match Play: Weather | How to make Wednesday worth watching

Wednesday matches, tee times

Time	Players
10:30 a.m.	No. 11 Rory McIlroy vs. No. 60 Ian Poulter (Group 11)
10:41 a.m.	No. 25 Cameron Smith vs. No. 46 Lanto Griffin (Group 11)
10:52 a.m.	No. 6 Xander Schauffele vs. No. 57 Andy Sullivan (Group 6)
11:03 a.m.	No. 30 Scottie Scheffler vs. No. 44 Jason Day (Group 6)
11:14 a.m.	No. 14 Daniel Berger vs. No. 62 Erik van Rooyen (Group 14)
11:25 a.m.	No. 19 Harris English vs. No. 47 Brendon Todd (Group 14)
11:36 a.m.	No. 3 Jon Rahm vs. No. 56 Sebastián Muñoz (Group 3)
11:47 a.m.	No. 24 Ryan Palmer vs. No. 38 Shane Lowry (Group 3)
11:58 a.m.	No. 10 Patrick Cantlay vs. No. 54 Brian Harman (Group 10)
12:09 p.m.	No. 23 Hideki Matsuyama vs. No. 42 Carlos Ortiz (Group 10)
12:20 p.m.	No. 7 Patrick Reed vs. No. 55 Bubba Watson (Group 7)
12:31 p.m.	No. 26 Joaquin Niemann vs. No. 33 Christiaan Bezuidenhout (Group 7)
12:42 p.m.	No. 15 Matt Fitzpatrick vs. No. 49 Jordan Spieth (Group 15)
12:53 p.m.	No. 20 Matthew Wolff vs. No. 37 Corey Conners (Group 15)
1:04 p.m.	No. 2 Justin Thomas vs. No. 52 Matt Kuchar (Group 2)
1:15 p.m.	No. 22 Louis Oosthuizen vs. No. 34 Kevin Kisner (Group 2)
1:26 p.m.	No. 12 Tony Finau vs. No. 64 Dylan Frittelli (Group 12)
1:37 p.m.	No. 29 Jason Kokrak vs. No. 40 Will Zalatoris (Group 12)
1:48 p.m.	No. 5 Bryson DeChambeau vs. No. 48 Antoine Rozner (Group 5)
1:59 p.m.	No. 21 Tommy Fleetwood vs. No. 45 Si Woo Kim (Group 5)
2:10 p.m.	No. 13 Viktor Hovland vs. No. 53 Kevin Streelman (Group 13)
2:21 p.m.	No. 27 Abraham Ancer vs. No. 43 Bernd Wiesberger (Group 13)
2:32 p.m.	No. 4 Collin Morikawa vs. No. 63 J.T. Poston (Group 4)
2:43 p.m.	No. 32 Billy Horschel vs. No. 35 Max Homa (Group 4)
2:54 p.m.	No. 9 Webb Simpson vs. No. 59 Talor Gooch (Group 9)
3:05 p.m.	No. 17 Paul Casey vs. No. 48 Mackenzie Hughes (Group 9)
3:16 p.m.	No. 8 Tyrrell Hatton vs. No. 51 Matt Wallace (Group 8)
3:27 p.m.	No. 18 Lee Westwood vs. No. 39 Sergio Garcia (Group 8)
3:38 p.m.	No. 16 Sungjae Im vs. No. 50 Russell Henley (Group 16)
3:49 p.m.	No. 31 Victor Perez vs. No. 36 Marc Leishman (Group 16)
4 p.m.	No. 1 Dustin Johnson vs. No. 61 Adam Long (Group 1)
4:11 p.m.	No. 28 Kevin Na vs. No. 41 Robert MacIntyre (Group 1)

Format

The field of 64 players has been split into 16 groups of four players. Players play everyone within their group in match play Wednesday-Friday and earn one point for a win and half of a point for a tie. The player with the most points in each group moves on to the knockout rounds. The group tiebreaker is sudden death stroke play.

The round of 16 and quarterfinal matches are then played on Saturday, followed by the semifinal, third-place and final matches on Sunday.

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Who’s in, who’s out of WGC-Dell Technologies Match Play

Check out who’s playing (and who’s not) at the WGC-Dell Technologies Match Play in Austin, Texas.

The field is set for the World Golf Championships-Dell Technologies Match Play in Austin, Texas, next week.

There will be 64 players in the bracket and there will only be five golfers who are eligible who will not be there. Austin Country Club will once again host the five-day tournament, March 24-28.

The top 11 players in the Official World Golf Ranking are set to play, including the top-ranked player in the world and Masters and FedEx Cup champion Dustin Johnson. Justin Thomas, ranked second and fresh off his Players Championship is also set to play. Jon Rahm, Collin Morikawa and Bryson DeChambeau round out the current top 5 in the ranking.

Defending champion Kevin Kisner will be back. He won the event in 2019; the 2020 event was canceled due to the COVID pandemic. Also, No. 69-ranked Dylan Frittelli is in the field. He gets the final spot because of the five players ranked ahead of him who will not be heading to Austin this week.

The final seeds will be determined based on the Official World Golf Ranking as of Monday, and that will finalize the bracket, which will be unveiled live on the PGA Tour’s digital platforms on Monday, March 22 at 11 a.m. ET.

Here are the notables not in the field.