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WGC Match Play to move

Austin - The World Golf Championships Match Play tournament will move to Austin, Texas, in 2016 and be played two weeks before next year's Masters, the International Federation of PGA Tours announced Tuesday.

The event was played in Arizona for the past eight years but this year moves to San Francisco's Harding Park course and from its prior February spot on the schedule to April 29-May 3 - three weeks after the Masters.

No decision on a host course has been made for the March 23-27, 2016, tournament.

The WGC Match Play will also have a new sponsor starting next year in Dell, a computer technology company based in the Austin area.

"The Match Play has a tremendous future with Dell as the incoming title sponsor, the event's move to Austin and the new round-robin format that is being introduced this year."

Instead of a strict knockout format as in years past, the Match-Play starting this year will feature 16 groups of four players based on seedings from world ranking.

Group matches Wednesday through Friday will decide 16 players for the first knockout round Saturday morning with the quarter-finals Saturday afternoon and the semi-finals and finals on Sunday.

Australian Jason Day is the defending champion after defeating France's Victor Dubuisson in 23 holes last year.

Past champions include England's Ian Poulter and Luke Donald, Aussie Geoff Ogilvy twice and US star Tiger Woods three times, most recently in 2008.

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