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By Helen Ross
PGATOUR.com Chief of Correspondents

TUCSON, Ariz. -- John Rollins reached into his golf bag and pulled out two long, thin orange-tipped poles.

Rollins laid them down, about 5 inches apart, on the grass at the right side of the practice range while his caddy emptied three bags of balls beside the sticks. The Virginian wore a short-sleeved yellow golf shirt, oblivious to the whipping wind and crisp temperatures.

John Rollins knows he needs to keep the pressure on Vijay Singh. (Marc Feldman/WireImage)

Vijay Singh was hunkered down nearby, alternately practicing his chipping and popping his driver -- on purpose -- high into the air. The shaft that the taciturn Fijian uses to check his swing plane was still sticking out of the ground about 10 feet away from Rollins.

Rollins and Singh meet Wednesday at 11:56 a.m. ET in the first round of the World Golf Championships-Accenture Match Play Championship. Monday, though, was reserved for fine-tuning and getting acquainted with the Gallery Golf Club at Dove Mountain.

The 7,400-yard layout is hosting the prestigious $8 million event for the first time this week. The John Fought creation is carved from the Arizona desert and features subtle turtle-back greens, as well as reachable par 5s and a trio of driveable par 4s.

"I think it's going to be a neat match play layout," Rollins said after his first practice round.

Rollins enters his second Accenture Match Play Championship with a task not unlike the one he faced in 2004, when he was what many believed would be the sacrificial lamb for the game's consummate match player in Tiger Woods.

Only Rollins, who faces the No. 7 player in the world in Singh on Wednesday, didn't read the script. Woods had to win the 17th and 18th holes just to beat Rollins 1 up.

"I felt like I had Tiger -- I don't want to say I had him beat, but I felt I had him on the ropes -- and really, I guess in essence, I did have him beat," Rollins recalled Monday. "And then he did what he's going to do -- make the clutch putts.

"On 14, 15 and 16, he made some clutch 5- and 6-footers to halve holes and stay alive. And I guess you think that sooner or later he's going to hit one on those shots, and he did that at 17 (for birdie) to crawl back to even."

Rollins says the 13th hole was actually the turning point of the match. Woods, who was 2 down at the time, missed the green and short-sided himself there. Rollins, meanwhile, was standing in the middle of the fairway.

"Instead of just getting the ball on the green and giving myself a birdie opportunity, I missed it right over there with him," Rollins said. "He got up and down and I didn't so I gave him a hole in essence. From that point on, I still played good but (Woods saw the opening he needed)."

Rollins knows he needs to keep the pressure on against Singh, who won the Mercedes-Benz Championship to start the 2007 season, all day.

"You have to keep it in play and stay patient," Rollins said. "Match play is a funny game. You have to try to play your game and keep the pressure on him. You want to make him have to do something to beat you rather than beat yourself."

And Rollins hasn't beaten himself much this year. A two-time winner on TOUR, he's already had two runner-up finishes this year, including a playoff loss to Charley Hoffman at the Bob Hope Chrysler Classic.

Rollins has only missed one cut in six starts, and he hasn't finished out of the top 25, including a tie for 18th last week at the Nissan Open. He was happy to play well at Riviera after taking a week off -- "that's always been kind of a downfall of mine," Rollins said -- but his ball-striking on the weekend left something to be desired.

"(It) just didn't feel comfortable as it was those first five weeks," said Rollins, who closed with a round of 1-over 72 on Sunday that dropped him from a tie for 11th to joint 18th. Hence the extended session on the range Monday afternoon, which saw Rollins outlast Singh.

The 31-year-old Rollins admits he's a more confident player than he was three years ago when he went up against Woods at La Costa. He knows he's playing better. He's much more consistent, too.

"The worst thing I can do this week, though, is come in here expecting something good to happen -- expecting the upset in the first round against Vijay," Rollins said. "Do I think I can beat him? Yes. But the worst thing I can do is come out here and (expect it).

"I just have to go out and play my game and see what happens. ... It should be fun."

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