Jones suffers an initial shock in matchplay

UNITED STATES Open champion Steve Jones plays his first Toyota World Matchplay Championship this week having just discovered it is far harder work than he imagined.

"It was only after I received the tournament literature last week that I realised that each match was over 36 holes," said the 37-year-old, seeded third at Wentworth.

"At first I saw the tee times were 8.0am and 1.0pm and thought, `If I'm playing in the morning, I wonder who's playing in the afternoon.'

"I'm ready for it, but it makes me happy that I don't have to play the first round on Thursday."

He enters the £650,000 event at the quarter-final stage on Friday against either fellow American Phil Mickelson or Fiji's Vijay Singh.

Jones, surprise winner of his first major title in June, missed the halfway cut in both the British Open at Lytham and the US PGA championship.

But he has returned to form in his last two tournaments, finishing third in the Quad City Classic and then second a fortnight ago in the Tokai Classic in Japan.

"I was home for only five days before flying here," said Jones. "This is one of the rewards for winning the US Open.

"I don't know too much about the history of the championship, but you only have to look at the list of previous winners to know it's a very big deal. And the title - World matchplay champion.

"I've not played any matchplay since 1981. I was defending my state amateur title and lost in the semi-finals.

"This is also the first time I've played an inland course in Britain. All my previous trips over have been for the Open and they are all played on seaside links."

Jones' first impressions of the West Course - he played eight holes on his arrival on Monday and a full practice round yesterday - are that it is playing long and tough.

He was almost disbelieving when told that defending champion Ernie Els had holed an eight-iron second shot to the third hole two years ago. "It was into the wind and I needed a three-iron," he said.

Jones won nearly £300.000 for his victory in the US Open at Oakland Hills and that is over half his entire earnings on the American tour this season. He lies 19th - two places behind Singh and 18 places behind Mickelson, who leads the Order of Merit with almost £1.1 million.

"It doesn't matter to me which of them comes through to face me - they're both tough," he said.

Injured Australian golfer Robert Allenby will play just one shot in a tournament next week before withdrawing to protect his high ranking on the European Tour money-winning list, his coach has confirmed.

Allenby, who lies third on the list, is recovering from a fractured breastbone and cannot swing a club properly.

But he must compete in the season-ending Volvo Masters in Valderrama, Spain, starting on October 24th, to retain his current place on the money list and earn a possible invitation to next year's US Masters, coach Steve Bann said.

"The difficult thing for him is to do it (play in the Volvo Masters) with some sort of dignity," Bann said. "He feels awkward and embarrassed about it. We don't want to make it a circus act."

Allenby will earn a £73,000 bonus if he finishes third on the money list, but the money will only be added to his aggregate earnings for the season if he tees off in Valderrama, Bann said.

If the bonus is not included, Allenby would almost certainly drop a place on the money list as a result, Bann said.

Bann said a third placing on the European Tour money list is normally enough to secure an invitation or exemption to play in all four majors the following season.

"He's had a dream for a long time to play the US Masters," Bann said.