There is to be no Irish tussle with the Tiger. The prize of a quarter-final clash today with the top attraction here on the West Course has gone to Darren Clarke's conqueror, Ian Woosnam, after the first round of the £740,000 Cisco World Matchplay Championship yesterday.

Defeat by 4 and 3 came as a bitter disappointment to the Tyroneman, who was acutely aware of a wonderful opportunity missed. "I really had my heart set on this week, but I have to accept that I didn't play well enough to win," said Clarke, who also lost at this stage last year, to the American Brad Faxon.

It seems insulting to the quality of the contestants to think of the opening round as a weeding-out process. But the truth is that the really strong contenders survived, as Colin Montgomerie overcame Ryder Cup colleague Thomas Bjorn while Lee Westwood crushed the lone Australian, Stuart Appleby. There would have been the mother of all post-mortems had Montgomerie lost to Bjorn, in view of happenings at the seventh hole during the morning round. But a potentially brittle situation was averted when the big Scot built on a one-hole lunchtime lead with winning birdies at the 24th, 25th and 26th holes in the afternoon.

Because of the damp conditions, officials considered it appropriate to permit preferred lies. So it was that when the woman ball-spotter pointed to Montgomerie's ball after his blind tee-shot at the seventh, he had no hesitation in lifting it up, preparatory to placing it.

Unfortunately it was Bjorn's ball. His own, which had been wrongly identified, was about three feet away. On becoming aware of his error, Montgomerie sought a ruling and was informed by official, Andy McFee, that he had incurred a one-stroke penalty for a breach of Rule 18-3, which deals with moving a ball other than during a search.

Montgomerie was three under par for the 33 holes he needed in disposing of the Dane, who insisted on competing despite being warned by his doctor to rest a damaged lower back. But the best golf of the day was produced by Westwood, who was an approximate 12 under par for the 29 holes he needed against Appleby, including an eight-under-par morning round of 64.

By comparison, the quality of play in the Woosnam-Clarke match was rather moderate. After a morning round of 71, the Welshman had a lunchtime lead of two holes, and when the match ended he was an approximate five under par for the 33 holes.

Taking a general view of the match, putting was decisive. In the morning, Clarke had 34 putts including only three singles, compared with 29 putts and seven singles from his opponent. "I just tried hitting the putts off my left foot and I began to stroke them really nicely," said Woosnam afterwards. "The funny thing is that they didn't look like they were going into the hole."

The magic remained with him in the afternoon when he had 10 single putts, compared to six from Clarke. And as a contest, it died on the 23rd, 24th and 25th holes. They crushed the hope that had been born in Clarke by a birdie at the short 20th, where he had reduced the gap to one hole with an eight iron to five feet.

Three holes later, he missed from four feet to allow his opponent a win in par. At the 24th, he pulled a nineiron approach into the left, greenside trap and under no real pressure, Woosnam sank a 15-footer for a winning birdie. Then came the real hammer-blow of a 25-footer from off the back of the 25th green for another winning birdie.

"Woosie holed them and I didn't," said Clarke. "That's been the story of my golf for the last two months." He went on: "I had too much respect for Ian to talk about the possibility of playing Tiger, but now that it's all over, I must say it's a terrible disappointment. It would have been a great experience."

Clarke could certainly have empathised with Westwood's comment "it's never as easy as it looks". The Englishman was referring to the demolition of Appleby. Highlight of Westwood's performance werefive birdies in a row from the eighth in the morning, where he displayed admirable precision with all of his irons. This was two fewer, however, than the record for the event, established by Woosnam in 1992 when he birdied seven, from the 23rd to the 29th.

Meanwhile, indicative of the challenge presented by a marvellous course was that Westwood was hitting a four iron into the 450-yard ninth and later, two-iron shots of between 205 and 210 yards at the long 17th and 18th holes.

He now faces Ernie Els, a finalist here for the last four years and threetime winner from 1995. "Els obviously likes this place but if I'm to think of winning the title, which I am, I've got to be prepared to meet the top players sooner or later," Westwood said.

Woosnam will face Tiger Woods. "It should be interesting," he said, greatly understating the challenge.

Clarke will decide this morning whether he has the stomach to watch.