Rory McIlroy outscored Tiger Woods for only the third time in 11 head-to-head encounters in China yesterday, winning their "Duel at Jinsha Lake" with a five-under-par 67 to the American's 68.
The world's top two players met for a one-off match after competing in Shanghai and Kuala Lumpur over the weekend. McIlroy had been runner-up to his Ryder Cup team-mate Peter Hanson at the BMW Masters and Woods was fourth behind his fellow American Nick Watney in the CIMB Classic.
Three weeks after Woods defeated the 23-year-old by six strokes at the World Golf Finals in Turkey, it was McIlroy who had the edge this time. He had two early birdies and turned two in front before Woods chipped in at the short 12th, but the American bogeyed two holes later and could not get back on terms.
Neither player is staying on in the country for this week's WGC-HSBC Champions at Mission Hills.
McIlroy, who is flying to Bulgaria to watch his tennis-player girlfriend Caroline Wozniacki in action, next plays at the Singapore Open next week, while Woods has one event left in 2012, the World Challenge in California next month.
McIlroy said: "It was close the whole day. I had the better start, then Tiger started getting birdies on the back nine. I think it was pretty exciting for the fans and it would be great to compete more with Tiger like this – maybe down the home stretch in the majors.
"The growth of the game here has been huge even in the few years I've been visiting and I really hope that games like these can inspire some kids who want to play the game. I wouldn't be surprised if one of the next great players was to come from China. With it being an Olympic sport [from 2016], interest is growing."
Woods said: "We actually both played decent golf. We left a lot of putts out there and we could have really shot some low numbers. This is certainly not like most Mondays. To have this many people come out is pretty special; we're ranked No.1 and No.2 in the world, so a match like this can really promote the game in China. I've come here for 11 years now and it's amazing how much the game has grown."
On McIlroy, he added: "Over the past few years it has been great to see his growth. We'd be excited about a rivalry, but we'd want it to last for 10 to 15 years."
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article
You must verify your phone number before you can comment.
Please enter your phone number below, and a verification code will be sent to you by text message.
Please enter the six-digit verification code sent to you by SMS.
Your verification code has been sent a second time to the mobile phone number you provided.
Your verification code has been sent a third time to the mobile phone number you provided.
You have requested your verification code too many times. Please try again later.
Didn’t receive a code? Send it againThe code you entered has not been recognised.
Please try again
You have failed to enter a correct code after three attempts.
Please try again later.
Your phone number has been verified.
Your phone number has been stored with your account details. We will never use it for anything other than verifying that you are the legitimate owner of this account.