Australian star Jason Day produced a stunning fightback to defeat Spain’s Raphael Cabrera-Bello in extra holes in the first round of the WGC Match Play Championship in Tucson, Arizona.
World No.7 Day looked dead and buried at three down with three to play but, with some help from the nervous Spaniard, he rallied to win on the 19th hole.
Cabrera-Bello bogeyed the final three holes to almost gift Day a ticket to the second round where he’ll meet fellow Australian John Senden.
Cabrera-Bello only needed to two putt from six feet on the 16th hole but blasted his first putt six feet past the hole and missed the comeback attempt.
Clearly rattled, he missed the 17th green on approach and failed to get up and down and then dumped his approach on the 18th into a near impossible lie in a bunker.
When he failed to make par he conceded Day a birdie, sending the match to extra holes.
On the first extra hole Day watched the Spaniard find some focus and stick an approach shot to 13 feet but the Australian refused to blink.
He almost holed out from 150 yards, then watched Cabrera-Bello lip out his birdie roll before tapping his in for a clutch victory.
“I felt like I just won the tournament,” Day admitted.
“I did kind of just scrape through, but I’m glad I stuck in there and didn’t give up.”
Senden, the 39th seed, hammered English 26th seed Simon Dyson 4 and 3.
While Senden was impressive in the rout, Dyson is expecting a child on Tuesday in England and played as if he had the impending birth and the flight back home on his mind.
Otherwise it was a tough day out for the six-man Australian contingent.
Eighth seed Adam Scott lost to 57th seeded Englishman Robert Rock 1-up and Aaron Baddeley fell 2 and 1 to former British Open champion Louis Oosthuizen.
Two time tournament champion Geoff Ogilvy was hammered 4 and 3 by Keegan Bradley and Greg Chalmers fell 4 and 2 to world No.4 Martin Kaymer.
Former world No.1 Tiger Woods scraped to a 1-up victory over Spaniard Gonzalo Fernandez-Castano.
Woods lost his opening two holes and was 1-down with four to play before rallying to win.
