Seamus Power makes perfect Match Play start in Austin

Seamus Power turned on the style to start his WGC Dell Technologies Match Play tournament with an impressive 5&4 win over Sungjae Im at Austin Country Club.

The Waterford man went up a gear on the back nine to put Im to the sword, with a birdie streak from the 11th, 12th, 13th to the 14th proving decisive.

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The 64 players at the match play event are split into 16 groups of four with only the pool winners advancing to the knockout stages at the weekend.

Power will go up against Patrick Cantlay on Thursday.

Today's performance is also a big boost to his hopes of making his debut at the Masters in a fortnight's time.

Power - ranked 48th in the world - began the week inside the all-important top 50 and it will now take an extremely unfortunate series of results to deny him a trip to Augusta National.

Meanwhile Ian Poulter's hopes of qualifying for the Masters suffered a potentially fatal blow as he lost his opening group game.

Poulter needs to reach at least the quarter-finals to climb into the top 50. However, the Ryder Cup star's fate is now out of his hands after he lost 2&1 to world number five Scottie Scheffler.

Even if Poulter wins his remaining two games against fellow Englishmen Tommy Fleetwood and Matt Fitzpatrick, Scheffler would advance to the knockout stages by beating the same two players.

Fitzpatrick edged out Fleetwood on the 18th on Wednesday but Lee Westwood lost 3&2 to Talor Gooch while Richard Bland halved his eagerly-anticipated match with Bryson DeChambeau.

DeChambeau's return to action after a six-week injury lay-off began in eventful fashion as his wayward opening drive finished up inside a first-aid tent and the former US Open champion also shanked his second shot on the next.

However, Bland -