Justin Rose won his first WGC event, one stroke ahead of runner-up Bubba Watson, the 54-hole leader.[1] Watson rebounded and won his first Masters the following month.
Course layout
The tournament was played on the TPC Blue Monster course.
The field consisted of players from the top of the Official World Golf Ranking and the money lists/Order of Merit from the six main professional golf tours. All 74 players that qualified for the tournament played in it. Branden Grace was the only player in the field who was appearing in his first WGC event. Players qualified based on the following qualification rules:[3][4] Each player is classified according to the first category in which he qualified, but other categories are shown in parentheses.
The 54-hole leader Bubba Watson stumbled early in the round and was 3 over par for the front nine, surrendering the lead to Keegan Bradley who was −3 after 7 holes. At one point Bradley led by 2 strokes but he stumbled on the back nine which included a three-putt from 4 feet and a 4 over par finish in the last 4 holes. Rory McIlroy also got into contention with an eagle on the 12th hole and was 1 back of the lead but a bogey on the 14th stopped his momentum. Justin Rose grabbed the lead on the back nine and never relinquished it, though on the final hole, Watson hit a brilliant shot from the rough and around the trees to 8 feet, but missed the ensuing putt which would have resulted in him getting into a playoff with Rose. Tiger Woods withdrew from the tournament after the third round because of an Achilles injury.
