AUSTIN, Texas – With 32 matches going on across Austin Country Club it is easy to miss something while trying to keep up with the drama at the World Golf Championships – Dell Technologies Match Play.

Never fear! We are here to help catch you up on the big events as they happen.

For full Day 2 match recaps, visit here.

WILDEST RIDE – Jordan Spieth and Matthew Wolff provide rollercoaster tie

You could have been watching the Jordan Spieth / Matthew Wolff match (like we were) and still missed a bunch of stuff! This was one wild ride that ebbed and flowed as much on positive play as it did on the negative.

Honestly it was like two heavyweight boxers coming out of retirement to take each other on – they were throwing the odd haymaker that had you longing for the old days but at the same time each spent time on the canvass from their own mistakes rather than the others prowess.

Both came into the match having won on Wednesday meaning a victory would have seen them in prime position to advance but their tie now means they’ll need to fight tooth and nail in their Friday matches to get to the weekend. This contest appeared to be Spieth’s for the majority of the day until implosions on the final two holes opened the door for Wolff to howl and steal a tie.

Prior to that the only howling Wolff was doing was of the moaning variety. A wild tee shot on the third hole led to a bogey and a dodgy putt from the fringe on the fourth left him with a testing par putt he duly missed to be 2-down early.

When he reached into his bag to hit a provisional tee shot on the fifth hole things really looked ominous for the Californian going up against the local Texan favorite. But his first shot was found and just as Spieth thought he was cruising Wolff dropped a 30-foot birdie putt to cut the deficit in half.

The joy was short-lived as Wolff’s short game went on vacation on the sixth. He watched a chip roll across the green into a bunker and then blasted his sand shot back across the putting surface.

On the seventh it was Spieth’s turn to lose a hole with a bogey as he failed to get up and down from a greenside bunker – a feat Wolff also had to attempt but did pull off.

Wolff pulled level at the turn thanks to a stunning approach shot to 2-feet, 8-inches on the ninth but not before Spieth’s 46-foot birdie try hit the hole but jumped over it.

But just as each player appeared to get momentum, they’d throw it away. This time Wolff found water off the tee on both the 10th and 11th holes allowing Spieth to quickly set up a 2-up lead once more.

On the 12th Spieth used the honor to slice his tee shot some 60 yards right of the edge of the fairway, leaving him out amongst the fans near a large merchandise tent. But he managed to find his way back to the correct hole and even had a chance from 10-feet to extend his lead but his putt ran out of steam.

On 13 the pair both put their second shots to three feet from the hole and looked at each other with quizzical eyes. Nothing was said so Wolff put his birdie in the hole and then picked up Spieth’s coin. The two came together and had a little chuckle over the moment.

“When I walked up there I saw he was a little closer and I knew I was farther out, so in my mind I'm thinking, well, I'm the one who is putting first, I'm the one who has the farther putt so if I say good-good I might look desperate,” Wolff recounted. “And then he told me after he was about to say good-good but I didn't, so that's why he didn't, and it was a funny match play moment.”

The pair would halve the next three holes leaving Spieth 2-up with just two to play but he would pull his tee shot on the par-3 17th left and it only stayed out of the canyon thanks to wedging between some rocks. His near impossible shot came out into a bunker and his third went from one bunker to another. When he was unable to hole out his fourth shot they moved on.

On 18 Spieth received a nice bounce back into the fairway from his tee shot but couldn’t capitalize and watched in horror as his approach spun back off the putting surface and into the rough. He was unable to get up and down and the hole was lost, leaving both to settle for a tie.

“Nothing against Jordan, but I'm sure he's thinking he gave me that match and he might have, but at the end of the day I got it up-and-down on 15 for par to keep the match 2-down and then birdied 16… ended up making par on 17 and then 18 technically I made a birdie,” Wolff said.

“So going 2-under in the last four… I felt like I did what I could to put that pressure on him and try to get that tie.”

On Friday Wolff plays Matt Fitzpatrick and Spieth takes on Corey Conners. A win for either guarantees at least a playoff to advance.

WHO WILL ADVANCE?

There are so many permutations of what could happen in Friday’s final day of Group Play but suffice to say there are still 46 of 64 players with a chance to win the Championship match come Sunday.

Some – like England’s Andy Sullivan – need to win and hope for a tie in the other group match just to reach a three-man playoff. Others – like Jon Rahm – know it is as simple as win and they’re through.

All the crazy options can be found right here.

PERFECT RECORDS

Scenarios can become convoluted at times but one way to ensure a path to the elimination rounds is to win all of your matches.

So far those to win outright on both days are No. 10 seed Patrick Cantlay, defending champion Kevin Kisner and the man he beat in the final in Matt Kuchar, Texan Ryan Palmer, last man in and No. 64 seed from South Africa Dylan Frittelli, Mexico’s Abraham Ancer, Canadian MacKenzie Hughes, Spaniards Jon Rahm and Sergio Garcia and England’s match play specialist Ian Poulter.

Kisner and Kuchar won’t meet in the final again this time around as they face each other in a winner take all match on Friday. The same scenario will play out for Rahm and his Zurich Classic Of New Orleans winning partner Palmer when they go head-to-head.

The rest of the undefeated mob also hold their destiny in their own hands knowing a win guarantees a trip to the weekend and sudden death play.

ELIMINATED

While all players have matches on Friday to close out the Group Stage there are a handful of players who have no chance of reaching the final 16 regardless of the result of their final match.

Those already effectively eliminated are led by recent PLAYERS Champion and No. 2 seed Justin Thomas who lost both his opening matches.

In order of seeding those joining Thomas with no hope of advancement are No. 4 Collin Morikawa, No. 8 Tyrrell Hatton, No. 12 Tony Finau, No. 13 Viktor Hovland, No. 22 Louis Oosthuizen, No. 23 Hideki Matsuyama, No. 28 Kevin Na, No. 33 Christiaan Bezuidenhout, No. 37 Corey Conners, No. 38 Shane Lowry, No. 40 Will Zalatoris, No. 44 Jason Day, No. 45 Si Woo Kim, No. 46 Lanto Griffin, No. 51 Matt Wallace, No. 56 Sebastian Munoz and No. 59 Talor Gooch.

BRYSON’S 46 YARD DRIVE

After a shock loss on the opening day to Antoine Rozner, Bryson DeChambeau kept his chances alive with a comeback 2 and 1 win over former PLAYERS champion Si Woo Kim despite hitting a drive just 46 yards on the par-4 10th hole.

Looking to drive the 395-yard hole DeChambeau miscued and ended up on the wrong putting surface.

“I could have easily cleared the trees up and over like I wanted to, but I hit it on the wrong part of the face and consequently hit the tree limb,” DeChambeau explained.

His ball actually took a wicked kick sideways to the practice putting area.

“I was trying to drive the green, whether it was the practice green or the 10th green. I got it close,” he laughed. "I heel-pulled it lower than I wanted, (so it) came out low off the face. Other than this little weird stretch, my longest drive of the year on 10, and the water ball on 11, I played pretty good otherwise.”

RORY RACKS UP RANGE MILES

After getting trounced by Ian Poulter on Day 1, former champion Rory McIlroy hit the Austin Country Club range and pounded through 11 bags of balls as he tried to ingrain teachings from new coach Pete Cowen into his swing. It appeared to have somewhat of a desired effect with McIlroy beating Lanto Griffin 4 and 3 on Thursday.

While Cowen wasn’t on property to help McIlroy directly, the two-time FedExCup champion was still prepared to put in the hard yards for gains down the road. After missing the cut at THE PLAYERS, McIlroy admitted to being in a funky place with his swing.

“My dad always said, you get out of it what you put into it, and that's the attitude that I'm sort of bringing with me to the course each and every day,” McIlroy said after his win.

“Pete and I have known each other since I was 13 years old, so it's not as if this is a new relationship. He's worked with a lot of players that I've been close with over the years, Darren Clarke, Graeme McDowell, Lee Westwood. I just felt like it was a natural fit in terms of Pete knows my goal,” McIlroy explained of the move to bring Cowen into his stable.

“With what I'm struggling with in my swing at the minute… his coaching philosophy puts an emphasis on that in terms of getting structure in the right arm and getting that supported at the top, and I just felt like he maybe had some ideas and had maybe a little more knowledge on that part of the golf swing than what I currently had.”

McIlroy’s long-time coach Michael Bannon hasn’t been removed entirely – with the move being somewhat necessitated via the COVID-19 pandemic.

“Michael is like a second dad to me, so (our) relationship and agreement is still the same. It's just the fact that I haven't been able to see him as much recently, and then the times that I have, because there hasn't been much continuity there… it was almost like we were trying to do too much,” McIlroy added.

“Pete is out on TOUR enough to sort of give me feels that I can play with and then stuff that I can work on, on the range, because as everyone knows, it's so hard to go out on the golf course and think so much about your golf swing. You need to be able to let that go and just be able to play shots. But if you have a couple little feels in there, it can help, and that's sort of the reason that I've went down this road.”

BIGGEST UPSET – Hughes wallops Webb Simpson

There really isn’t any such thing as an “upset” in 18-hole match play between the top golfers in the world but former RSM Classic winner MacKenzie Hughes took out Webb Simpson 4 and 3 on Thursday with relative ease.

Simpson, who had won on Wednesday as the top seed in Group 9, was unable to find any birdies until the 12th hole against Hughes.

The Canadian Hughes was riding high after his Wednesday win over Paul Casey and continued that form to make the turn 3-up. Simpson’s aforementioned birdie cut the lead slightly, but Hughes birdied the next three to ensure the win.

He now holds his destiny in his own hands and only needs to tie, or beat, a winless Talor Gooch to move on.

BEST MATCH – Cantlay wins another intense contest

A day after needing to be 8-under to beat Brian Harman on the 18th green, Patrick Cantlay outlasted Carlos Ortiz 1-up with a 6-under round.

Ortiz was near flawless himself on his way to five birdies and while he never led the match at any stage, he never trailed by more than one hole either.

It was an incredible battle that didn’t deserve a loser.

Incidentally Harman, the unlucky loser to Cantlay on Wednesday, matched opponent Hideki Matsuyama with a 5-under round Thursday but this time squeaked out a 1-up win.

Group 10 has indeed turned out to be the “group of death”.