Rory McIlroy suffered the beating of his young life here at the Accenture Match Play Championship yesterday as the head-to-head format once again displayed its penchant for the unexpected. Lee Westwood and Phil Mickelson both joined the young Ulsterman in this big-name exodus on a day of shocks.

The American Bubba Watson held off late charges by Phil Mickelson and Venezuela's Jhonattan Vegas to clinch his second PGA Tour title with an emotional one-shot victory at the Farmers Insurance Open late on Sunday.

This year's Scottish Open will be played at Castle Stuart near Inverness in July. Loch Lomond has hosted the event for the last 15 years, but it will be moved to the new venue this summer.

To the baffled outsider, Padraig Harrington has always lived by the motto, "if it ain't broke, DO fix it". Yet here yesterday the Irishman's incessant tinkering did appear to have paid instant dividends.

Charl Schwartzel has been tipped for super-stardom ever since he won a European Tour card just after his 18th birthday in 2002 - and maybe now it is about to happen.

The Players Championship – aka the world's richest tournament, aka the fifth major, aka the PGA Tour's flagship event – will be minus the professional currently ranked the game's best player. With the news American officials were dreading, Lee Westwood revealed yesterday he will be skipping Sawgrass this year.

Phil Mickelson was hit with an embarrassing two-stroke penalty at the Singapore Open yesterday after the US Masters champion was late for the resumption of the final round following a delay for bad weather.

Lee Westwood began life as world No 1 with a sparkling 66 in the HSBC Champions first round yesterday. The 37-year-old Briton, who ended Tiger Woods' 281-week reign at the summit last weekend, played through thepain of ankle and calf injuries to sit just one shot behind Italian Francesco Molinari at the top of the leader board.

Even though the fuss over Lee Westwood's rise to No 1 could be over almost before it has begun, it is no reason to dim the celebration when he tees off with Phil Mickelson in Shanghai for the World Championship tournament in the small hours of tomorrow morning.

The first encounter between Lee Westwood and Tiger Woods since they switched spots at the top of the world ranking was not exactly the momentous occasion some thought it might be here yesterday.

Tiger Woods says it was no surprise to lose golf's No. 1 ranking to England's Lee Westwood after struggling through a disappointing year.

Britain and Europe awake today atop of the golfing world for the first time in 16 years as Lee Westwood officially displaces Tiger Woods from the No 1 position he has held for 281 weeks.

When it comes to realising his long-held ambition of becoming the world No 1, the "if" no longer has to be a question for Lee Westwood; only the "when" and "how" remains. With a 66 which defied not only the pain in his calf but also the conditions here on the feared Angus links, the Englishman gave himself a chance today of usurping Tiger Woods in, as he puts it, "the right way".