First American Since 2008

Hunter Mahan leaves burn marks on the course in the WGC-Accenture Match Play Championship as he is on fire and Sunday he explodes. Hunter delivers the goods on the course with 35 birdies in 96 holes over a whopping six matches.

Hunter takes three holes in a row in the first nine to take control of the match. Mahan takes on Mcllory head to head and makes birdies of his own to take the victory away from Mcllory along with first place in the world.

Luke Donald hangs on to his number one status, with Lee Westwood and Rory Mcllory not winning the WGC-Accenture Match Play Championship Luke remains number one in the world golf rankings. This gives Hunter Mahan ninth place in the world rankings for the first time.

Hunter goes into this Championship with the talk being that Rory Mcllory should be taking the win and has crowd support as Rory’s fans were showing their support for the young golfer. Hunter drew from this, saying Hunter “There was absolute motivation in that” he could well have felt pressured by the consensus that Mcllory was the favorite to win.

The seventh hole was not as good for Mcllory as he had to take two shots at the flag giving him a double bogey on that hole. Hunter and Rory landed within feet of each other after their respected shots and both faced with a sharp uphill shot with the flag being hard to see and just at the edge of the green.

The final match may have been defined by the great putt of Hunters, or the fact that Mcllory missed. Mahan just off the green with an excellent executed putt, it rolled right down the line and looked like it was on target but came up short.

Hunter had this to say on that putt "I thought that was the best play,” "My touch with my putting has been pretty awesome this week. And at that time, where Rory is, I felt that gave me the best chance to make it."

Coming up short and missing his putt Mcllory falls two behind Hunter, stays second in the world and in second place in the WGC Championship.

Nothing being taken away from Mcllory he had played like a champion everyday he day he was there and all the time he was on the course. The matchup between Rory and Lee Westwood was much of a championship in itself. As it was an exciting game of cat and mouse and each player was in the lead and then losing it.

Westwood takes the lead with two birdies and loses the three up as fastest as he had taken it, making it for very exciting golf.

Taken the win from out under Rory Mcllory, I say congratulations to an exciting and well-deserved victory for Hunter Mahan. Good luck for the rest of the 2012 season, let’s see if Hunter can take advantage of this victory to gain momentum.