MARANA, Ariz. -- At the 2008 WGC-Accenture Match Play Championship, Tiger Woods edged J.B. Holmes, 1-up, in the first round and had to play two extra holes before eliminating Aaron Baddeley in the third round. Following those close calls, Woods turned up the heat and won three more matches, including an 8-and-7 rout of Stewart Cink to win the Accenture Match Play Championship for a third time. He also won in 2003 and 2004.

The top 64 players in the Official World Golf Ranking are in Arizona this week for the first World Golf Championships event of the season. The CA Championship and the Bridgestone Invitational will round out the schedule. The top seeds in the four brackets are Woods, Sergio Garcia, Padraig Harrington and Vijay Singh.

Woods has the most match wins (31) in Accenture Match Play history. Woods is 20-4 against the International players and 11-2 against Americans. Woods' two losses against players from the United States came in the quarterfinals in 1999, when he lost to Jeff Maggert and in 2006, when Chad Campbell ousted Woods in the third round.

Woods has four losses against International players, losing to Peter O'Malley in the first round in 2002 and twice to Nick O'Hern (2005 and 2007). Northern Ireland's Darren Clarke defeated Woods in the 2003 championship match. None of the five players are in this week's field.

Each year, the World Golf Championships brings together the best players from across the globe to play against each other. There are 19 countries represented in the field this year including the first-ever appearance of a player from Taiwan (Wen-Tang Lin). Nineteen countries represented ties the record for the most countries in the Accenture Match Play, matching the 2006 event.

At the start of the 2009 season, seven players were outside the top 64 in the Official World Golf Ranking but made big moves the first six weeks of the season to qualify for this week's tournament. Dustin Johnson and Louis Oosthuizen made the biggest jumps this year to reach the top 64 and qualify.

Johnson was No. 143 at the start of the 2009 season. His win at the rain-shortened AT&T Pebble Beach National Pro-Am helped him move to No. 45. Oosthuizen was No. 134 at the start of 2009, but thanks to five consecutive top-10 finishes on the European Tour (including two runner-up performances, at the Abu Dhabi Golf Championship and the Commercialbank Qatar Masters, he is now No. 49.

Four players have more than one appearance in championship matches, led by Woods who has made it to the finals four times. He has three victories. Three other players have been in the finals twice: Davis Love III (2004, 2006), David Toms (2003, 2005) and Geoff Ogilvy (2006-07). Ogilvy and Toms are 1-1 in championship matches, while Love is 0-2.

With the 12 new players making their Accenture Match Play debut this week, the all-time total of players who have qualified to play in this World Golf Championships event climbs to 203. Stuart Appleby is the only player to compete in every event since its inception in 1999. The 12 new players this year are Ross Fisher, Mathew Goggin, Dustin Johnson, Anthony Kim, Soren Kjeldsen, Lin Wen-Tang, Prayad Marksaeng, Rory McIlroy, Louis Oosthuizen, Charl Schwartzel, Alvaro Quiros and Oliver Wilson. Of that group, these first-timers will be playing each other in the first round: McIlroy vs. Oosthuizen and Kim vs. Lin.

Several first-round matches have a Presidents Cup feel to them, with American golfers playing these non-Europeans in the first round:
Tiger Woods vs. Brendan Jones (Australia)
Hunter Mahan vs. Mike Weir (Canada)
Kevin Sutherland vs. Geoff Ogilvy (Australia)
Phil Mickelson vs. Angel Cabrera (Argentina)
Stewart Cink vs. Richard Sterne (South Africa)
Sean O'Hair vs. Adam Scott (Australia)
Kenny Perry vs. Mathew Goggin (Australia)
Justin Leonard vs. Andres Romero (Argentina)
Anthony Kim vs. Wen-Tang Lin (Taiwan)

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