Louis Oosthuizen of South Africa took out top-ranked Jason Spieth and No. 8 Dustin Johnson a few hours apart in the WGC-Dell Match Play Championship.
Oosthuizen handled Spieth, 4 and 2, in the Round of 16 before turning back Johnson in the quarterfinals with a rally on the back nine, clinching a 2-and-1 victory with a 21-foot birdie putt on the 17th hole.
The South African has flown under the radar all week and will again in his semifinal match against Rafa Cabrera Belo of Spain on Sunday morning because almost everyone will be watching No. 2 Jason Day of Australia play defending champion and No. 3 Rory McIlroy of Northern Ireland.
“It was a huge match for me this morning,” Oosthuizen said. “Jordan is someone who’s been playing unbelievable golf and I wanted to be really prepared for it this morning and stay in the moment, and didn’t do something silly. I made good putts when I needed to and just played solid golf.
“Obviously this afternoon was a big match, as well, but it was a lot taken off of me going into the afternoon match. Just I felt a little bit more at ease.”
The winners will play in the championship match in the afternoon, while the morning losers play for third place.
Spieth, who will lose his top spot in the World Rankings to Day on Monday no matter what happens in the semifinals and finals, nearly missed his tee time as he was putting on the practice green before being summoned to the first tee..
Once the match started, he never had his best stuff.
“I got to the range this morning and I was hitting slices with my irons, which is bizarre,” Spieth said. “I just tried to compensate some on the golf course and got away with it the first couple of holes, and then it got the best of me.
“It’s frustrating when you are so uncomfortable over the ball. It’s trying to find the balance. We got some momentum this week that we didn’t have before that we can carry through Houston (next week) and into the Masters.”
McIlroy has posted an 11-0-1 record in his last 12 matches in the WGC-Match Play, including a 7-0 when he won the title at TPC Harding Park in San Francisco.
The Irishman is trying to join Tiger Woods (2003, 2004) as the only players in tournament history to successfully defend his title.
McIlroy took down red-hot taking down Zach Johnson, 1-up, in the round of 16 and Chris Kirk, 4 and 3, in the quarterfinals.
Day, who has played with a back injury since the first round, holed a seven-foot eagle putt to close out his 3-and-2 victory over Brandt Snedeker in the morning, and defeated Brooks Kopeka by the same score in the quarterfinals.
Cabrera Bello beat Ryan Moore, 2 and 1, to reach the semifinals after being 4-up when Byeong-Hung An of South Korea withdrew on the 12th hole because of a neck injury in the morning.
There were 11 Americans in the Round of 16, but none made it to the semifinals.
