MARANA, Ariz. -- Scott Piercy, making his first appearance in the World Golf Championships-Accenture Match Play Championship, beat veteran Paul Lawrie of Scotland, 4 and 3, in the first round.

Piercy won the first two holes -- making eagle at the par-5 second -- and never trailed. He went 3 up at the turn with a birdie at the ninth, then produced three birdies in a four-hole stretch to end the match.

Piercy, a No. 8 seed, now plays Luke Donald in the second round of the Snead bracket.

 

To promote this week’s UBS Hong Kong Open, Y.E. Yang and several other players gathered at the top of Victoria Peak, a mountain on the western part of the island, to hit shots into the stratosphere.

The views were spectacular and Yang tweeted several photos. In one, he posed with two other well-known players -- one of whom is participating in "Movember," a charity where men grow moustaches to raise funds and awareness for men's health.

"Guess who these guys are," Yang tweeted. "You'll never know who the guy with the 'stache is.'

For the record, the Fu Manchu belongs to three-time major champion Padraig Harrington.

By Helen Ross, PGATOUR.COM

MEDINAH, Ill. – Paul Lawrie has returned to the Ryder Cup this week after an absence of 13 years, and a lot has changed during that time.

For example, only one member of the European squad – Jesper Parnevik – made his home in the United States so Lawrie the plane flight across the Atlantic to Massachusetts was packed with his 11 teammates. This year, he came with three and Captain Jose Maria Olazabal.

Lawrie hit the opening tee shot that year at Brookline playing with Colin Montgomerie in Foursomes against David Duval and Phil Mickelson. The Europeans ended up winning the match 3 and 2.

“To be fair,” Lawrie said he didn’t exactly enjoy being the leadoff hitter, so to speak. “It was kind of one of those situations where after it happened and after you did it, it was quite good to do and people still remember that you did it. 

“But during it, it was kind of pretty difficult.”

The match referee tried to break the ice on the first tee by telling the two Europeans that he was, like they are, Scotch. It didn’t exactly work.

“And Monty said, "No, Scotch is a drink.  It's a drink, it's a drink, it's a drink,’” Lawrie recalled. “And then he showed us pictures of his grandkids. … Man, I'm supposed to hit in two minutes the opening tee shot of the Ryder Cup, and this guy is showing me pictures of his grandkids. 

“You know, it was strange, but it kind of made it a little bit of a lighthearted moment.”

MARANA, Ariz. -- Martin Laird was 16 years old when Paul Lawrie came from 10 shots off the pace to beat Jean van de Velde and win the British Open in 1999.

Shortly afterwards Lawrie gave a clinic and held a Q&A session for the Scottish National team. Lawrie's friend Adam Hunter was the coach and a teenage Laird was a member of the team.

In an interesting twist of fate, on Friday, more than a decade later, Lawrie and Laird will meet in the third round of the Accenture Match Play Championship. Their match tees off at 1:26 p.m. ET.

"I remember looking up to him then thinking this is where I want to go," recalled Laird, who ended up going to college at Colorado State and settling in Scottsdale, Ariz. "I want to be holding the trophy like he is. And it's kind of funny now I'm playing him tomorrow right here in Arizona."

Lawrie has played some practice rounds with Laird, who won his first PGA TOUR event last year at the Arnold Palmer Invitational presented by MasterCard. But he doesn't remember his fellow Scot from among the three dozen or so eager youngsters he met with way back in 1999.

"He mentioned that to me when we played nine holes a couple of years ago," Lawrie said."... Adam had asked me to come along and chat with the boys. I don't remember Martin. There was obviously about 30 boys there, but he did tell me the story. I'm a bit older than him, obviously."

The 43-year-old veteran hasn't played in the Accenture Match Play Championship since 2003. He enters the World Golf Championships event ranked 45th in the world and is playing extremely well with a win in Qatar and two other top-10s in four starts this season 

"I'm looking forward to it," Lawrie said. "Obviously Martin has been playing good, and he's ahead of me in the world ranking (at No. 40), so he's the favorite.  I'm looking forward to it. It should be good."

The 29-year-old Laird agreed.

"I like this golf course," he said. "I feel very comfortable with desert golf. I  was disappointed last year, I played well and got beat by a better player on the day.  So I've been looking forward to getting back here this year.
   
"I played well the first two rounds, and I had to. It doesn't really matter who you've got, when you've got the top 64 players in the world you've got to play good to win. My game is looking good and I'm looking forward to the rest of the week."

By Melanie Hauser, PGATOUR.com Correspondent PONTE VEDRA BEACH, Fla. -- It's a grass roots effort that's getting a lot of buzz. Twitter's all a-tweet with the idea of changing the image on the European Tour logo to that of the late Seve Ballesteros fist-pumping at the 1984 British Open. The current logo image is Harry Vardon, which is nice, but . . . Seve . . . . "It's iconic,'' three-time major champ Padraig Harrington said. "Seve IS the European Tour. It's not belittling the guys who put a lot of work into the tour behind the scenes. But Seve is iconic. He's the emotional heart of the European Tour. "He drove the European Tour. He inspired the players who came up in the '80s. He inspired the players playing now." Paul Lawrie, Sir Nick Faldo, Ian Woosnam and Colin Montgomerie are among those players not here who have been campaigning to have Seve's image and a number of players  have been tweeting about using the image of him pumping his first after holing the winning putt at St. Andrews in 1984. Absolutely, said Australian Adam Scott, who played the European Tour for several years before joining the PGA TOUR. "It's a fantastic tribute. I'm not out of place saying that he built the European Tour into what it is today.'' Added Englishman Luke Donald, who, like Harrington, plays both tours,  "I think it's very fitting. He did a lot to put the European Tour on the map.'' Ballesteros, who was memorialized at a service in his hometown of Pedrena Wednesday,  was one of only two European players in the field at the 1980 Masters, which he won. Sandy Lyle was the other. Ballesteros opened the door for European players to compete, not just in the Masters, but in PGA TOUR events in the early 1980s. "He put Europe on the map going traveling around the world," Woosnam, a fellow Masters champ, told Associated Press. "The Ryder Cup is one of the biggest events in the world and that's thanks to Seve." Lawrie, the 1999 British Open champ, has been one of the most vocal advocates of the change. "There is quite a few players who believe that it should have been a logo featuring Seve in the first place," he told Setanta Sports. "Of course, it's not for me to tell the Tour what to do. The current logo is a nice logo and it's been very well done. But everyone knows and agrees that it was Seve was the player that really started it all for the European Tour. He was the difference. "We shouldn't be changing the logo just because he's gone but that's always been the case so maybe it could have been a Seve logo from the word 'go'." European Tour chief executive George O'Grady told Associated Press, "We will look at it nice and calmly, and if we do consider any single player's image at the moment it would be Seve's.''

Paul Lawrie, who hails from nearby Aberdeen, is the last player from the United Kingdom to have won the British Open. So it was interesting that the 1995 champion found himself in Thursday’s leadoff group – and actually hitting the opening tee shot in the 150th anniversary event.

Lawrie, who came from 10 strokes off the pace to beat Justin Leonard and Jean Van de Velde in a playoff at Carnoustie in 1999, is believed to be the first former Open champion in recent times to hit the leadoff shot.

Lawrie’s hybrid found the fairway and he parred the first hole. The 41-year-old veteran, whose alarm went off at 4:45 a.m., went on to make five birdies, three of which came in his final five holes, to post a 69.

The round of 3 under marked Lawrie’s best start in 18 British Opens. Steve Marino, who was playing with Lawrie, also shot 69 while the third member of the group, Thomas Levet, finished with a 73. – Helen Ross