McDowell & Clarke bow out in Tucson

Graeme McDowell was the first player to tee off in the Accenture Match Play Championship in Tucson today - and the first player to make his exit.

For the second year running Portrush’s former US Open champion lost to Korean YE Yang, this time by a 2&1 first round margin.

McDowell led after five holes, but Yang took control with birdies on the next two and then a par at the 476-yard ninth, where Europe's Ryder Cup hero double-bogeyed.

A six-foot birdie putt on the short 12th brought the gap back to one, but it was the closest McDowell could get and a superb approach to four feet on the 17th allowed the 2009 USPGA champion to close things out with a birdie.

Darren Clarke is also out of the tournament, losing 5&4 to Nick Watney.

Rory McIlroy is the third and last of the Irish in action, he faces South African George Coetzee in the second last of the pairings to tee-off.

The second player through to the last 32 was 20-year-old Japanese player Ryo Ishikawa - and he knocked out FedEx Cup champion Bill Haas, winner of the Northern Trust Open in Los Angeles on Sunday. Haas bogeyed the last to lose after standing three up with five to go.

Ian Poulter suffered a first-round defeat for the second successive year. Last February it came at the 19th to Stewart Cink, but on this occasion he was well-beaten 4&3 by Korea's Bae Sang-moon, playing the first World Golf Championship of his career.

Thomas Bjorn, conqueror of Woods at the 19th last year, went 20 holes on his return to the tournament - and then lost when Italian Francesco Molinari chipped in for an eagle.

American Ryder Cup team-mates Dustin Johnson and Jim Furyk went two extra holes as well. Johnson, who had been three down earlier on, had to take a penalty drop from a bush there, but scrambled a par and won when his opponent three-putted.