Star-studded field set for Dell Match Play

The field for next week's WGC-Dell Technologies Match Play tournament was made official Friday, and all but two of the best golfers in the world accepted an invitation to Austin.

The top 64 players in the world were eligible and had until Friday to RSVP. The only two who said no were Rickie Fowler, who was runner-up in last year's Masters and is eighth in this week's world rankings, and Adam Scott, who's 29th.

Neither Fowler nor Scott has played in the Austin tournament since the first one in 2016. Neither made it out of pod play that year.

Two alternates filled out the field — Satoshi Kodaira of Japan and Luke List of the United States. The field has players from 17 countries. It's a convergence of six worldwide tours.

Golfers will begin arriving in Austin this weekend.

The field will be seeded into four groups, based on Monday's world rankings. A blind draw will create 16 pods. Three rounds of pod play will start Wednesday morning at Austin Country Club. The top 16 will play Saturday morning as they start the knockout rounds. The finals will be the next afternoon.

The bracket will be revealed Monday afternoon.

Led by Dustin Johnson, nine of the top 10 players in the world will compete. The previous three Dell Match Play champions are in the field — Jason Day, Johnson and Bubba Watson.

Ten players will make their Austin debut. The biggest name is Tiger Woods, who this time a year ago wasn't ranked among the top 64. He's now 13th in the world. He will be seeded 12th in Austin, one of the 16 players with a No. 1 seed.

Another Austin newcomer is Sweden's Henrik Stenson, who won the 2016 British Open.

Justin Rose, who has skipped the previous two Austin tournaments, will be back. Rose, who won last year's FedEx Cup, ranked second to Johnson in this week's world rankings.

Players will compete for a purse of $10 million. The only tournament outside of the four majors that pays more than Austin is the Players Championship.