Remember when your parents warned you not to play with matches?

Well, there’s always a risk of someone getting burned when the matches are struck in the World Golf Championships-Accenture Match Play Championship. The element of match play makes every one of the 64 players in the field a favorite and an underdog, with the roles switching as each individual game plays out. At week’s end the winner of the $7.5 million tournament at La Costa Resort and Spa is likely to be the player who has hit the most good shots, made the most key putts, and has worn the asbestos suit of confidence.

A little luck couldn’t hurt, either.

Only two of the top 64 players in the world rankings is skipping this cauldron of constant pressure that begins Wednesday: No. 6 Sergio Garcia and No. 31 Thomas Bjorn, the latter who withdrew earlier Monday with a neck injury. That gives No. 68 Stephen Ames the honor of the first match against top seed and two-time champ Tiger Woods. Playing with matches indeed.

Woods, Vijay Singh, Retief Goosen and Ernie Els are the top four seeds.

Attempting to sow seeds of confidence elsewhere on the PGA TOUR this week are the 132 men who are teeing it up in Arizona at the Chrysler Classic of Tucson, which offers $3 million and the chance to traverse a fine stage, the newly named Catalina Course at Omni Tucson National Golf Resort.

Two tourneys, two winners and lots of potential plots and subplots. Is it me or is getting hot in here?

Last year: Toms, second to Tiger Woods in 2003, blitzed DiMarco 6 and 5, a record margin of victory, on the strength of a morning blitz when he won eight of nine holes, five with birdies inside 8 feet. At one point he was up nine holes. Left-handed Australian Nick O’Hern eliminated two-time defending champion Woods in Round 2.

How he did it: By beating up on Australia, for starters. O’Hern took care of Woods, but Toms dispatched, in order, Aussies Richard Green and Mark Hensby, compatriot Phil Mickelson, and a third Aussie, Adam Scott, before dispatching Ian Poulter of England in the semifinal match. No player was more efficient than the former PGA Champion, who hit a series of spectacular approach shots and played 116 holes with just four bogeys.

If the course (La Costa) could talk: My composite configuration features two 18th holes, one from the North and one from the South, to finish each nine. But the par-3 16th is where I can break hearts.

Strange but true: Geoff Ogilvy is the first winner of the Chrysler Classic of Tucson to qualify for the Accenture Match Play Championship the following year and miss defending his title. Ogilvy won last year’s edition.

True but not necessarily strange: Home is where the heart is – and where the wins are – for Tiger Woods, who has captured 10 professional titles in his native California and eight in his adopted home state of Florida. Ohio is his next favorite stop, where he has won seven times.

Worth knowing:

Reigning Match Play king David Toms already has a TOUR win in 2006. (Badz/ PGA TOUR/ WireImage)

•Defending champion David Toms is 18-5 lifetime in the Accenture Match Play Championship, the second best record in the history of the event behind Tiger Woods, who is 21-4. Woods and Toms are the only two players to reach the final match more than once.

• Retief Goosen, the last of the holdouts among the top-10 players in the world, finally makes his season debut in the U.S. Goosen was the consolation winner last year over Ian Poulter after falling to DiMarco in the semis.

• Ernie Els is back in the match play field after a two-year hiatus, but history says his stay might be short. A five-time winner of the HSBC World Match Play Championship on the European Tour, Els has advanced to the Accenture Match Play semifinals just once, in 2001 when the event was held in Australia. At La Costa, Els has never survived more than one round.

•Only three players among the final 16 last year at La Costa -- Nick O'Hern, Kirk Triplett and Rory Sabbatini – had not previously played on a Ryder Cup or Presidents Cup team.

• Stuart Appleby is the only player who has competed in every one of the 21 World Golf Championships tournaments since the inception of the series in 1999. He has four top-10s, including a tie for second at the 2003 World Golf Championships-American Express Championship.

•Appleby and Justin Leonard, should they get to the first tee, are the only two players to appear in all eight editions of the match play event. Neither man has ever won more than two matches, and they are a combined 7-7 in the first round.

•There are seven first-time participants in the match play tournament and three players playing in their first World Golf Championships event – Arron Oberholser, Lucas Glover and Paul Broadhurst. Of the 11 first-time match play participants last year, only four won one match and only one man, Luke Donald, made it to the third round.

•Odds are the next Chrysler Classic of Tucson champion will be a first-time winner. Since 2000 five of the six victors broke through with their initial victory in the desert. The exception: Frank Lickliter in 2003. Overall, 14 men have won their first TOUR title in Tucson.

• Greg Norman, who just turned 51, had been working on his game feverishly this winter and was planning on making his ’06 PGA TOUR debut at the Ford Championship at Doral, where he’s won three times. Instead, he’s having another surgery on his right knee this week and will be sidelined for at least another couple of months.

• Nick Price is poised to make his fourth appearance in Tucson and his first since 1992.

TOUR Insider’s strength of field index: We already know how good the match play field is, but throw in a strong contingent at the Chrysler Classic of Tucson, and you get a Biggie Combo. 9.5.

TI’s power ranking for the Accenture Match Play Championship: 1. Tiger Woods, 2. Michael Campbell, 3. Chris DiMarco, 4. Scott Verplank, 5. Jose Maria Olazabal.

TI’s power ranking for the Chrysler Classic of Tucson: 1. Justin Rose, 2. Joe Ogilvie, 3. Kevin Na, 4. Steve Flesch, 5. Billy Mayfair.

Parting shot: “I talk about a twelvesome; I'm not kidding about that. We will probably play a twelvesome one day and just have some fun playing alternate shot. Just all tee it up on the first tee together and away we go.” – U.S. captain Tom Lehman, on a possible practice round strategy at the Ryder Cup in Ireland.