YOU can take the HSBC World Match Play Championship out of October, but you can’t take October out of the World Match Play. A wintry chill cut into the bones of spectators and competitors at Wentworth yesterday, despite it being September, and into no one’s bones so much as those of Mark Hensby and Luke Donald. The two men who had been so quietly impressive in the first round found themselves humbled and di spatched in the next.

Hensby lost to Retief Goosen by 12 and 11, equalling the record margin of defeat that Goosen had set against Jeff Maggert last year. If Colin Montgomerie was watching on television, he must have wondered whether the man who was nine down at lunchtime to Goosen was the same man who had come back from being four down after 13 to beat him on the 35th green yesterday.

Of Goosen it can be said that he plays very well when he putts well. Think of his first-round dismissal of Kenneth Ferrie, his defeat of Maggert last year and his last nine holes on his way to victory in the 2004 US Open when he took only 11 putts. He laid the foundations of his demolition of Hensby by getting to nine up after 18 holes, during which he took only 26 putts.

On the holes where Goosen did not hole anything exceptional, then Hensby putted badly. In the morning the Australian missed from four feet on the 9th, three feet on the 10th, five feet on the 11th and six feet on the 16th. If the first two matches of Goosen, the top seed, had gone the full distance he would have played 72 holes. In fact, he has played 54 and so fatigue should not be a factor in his semi-final today against Michael Campbell, who came from four down to beat Steve Elkington at the 37th.

Only a little less convincing than Goosen’s victory was Paul McGinley’s over Donald, his Ryder Cup team-mate. McGinley, a self-confessed slow learner, is rightly proud of what he has achieved in the 12 years since he joined the European Tour aged 26. “Things have come slowly for me,” McGinley said, pointing out that at 19 his handicap was seven. “They are winning majors at 19 years of age now.”

Things have not come slowly lately for the genial Irishman. There have been his two performances in the past two Ryder Cups, his second place in the BMW Championship over this course last May and his third in the NEC Invitational, a World Golf Championship event, in the United States last month that earned him enough points to break into the world’s top 50 and qualify him for this event. Now he has beaten Thomas Björn and, yesterday, Donald.

McGinley has such an economical swing in which there appears to be not a millimetre of excess action that you sometimes wonder what can go wrong with it. His swing must generate considerable warmth. Plenty of the spectators who followed him and Donald were wrapped as for winter but McGinley wore only a short sleeved shirt, although he did encase his hands in ski gloves between shots.

Willie Park said that “the man who can putt is the match of anyone”. Goosen has borne that out this week and so has McGinley, who sank putts of 15 feet on the 3rd and 20 feet on the 5th and 6th. However, it was events on the 23rd that made it clear that McGinley was uncatchable. Donald, 50 feet from the hole, ran his putt 12 feet past; McGinley, putting down a perilous green and trying just to stop his ball near the hole , sank his from 45 feet.

Donald stooped to pick the ball out of the hole and after handing it to McGinley, who had the grace to smile, patted his friend on the back. McGinley will play Ángel Cabrera in the other semi-final.

RESULTS

QUARTER-FINALS

R Goosen (SA) bt M Hensby (Aus) 12 and 11

P McGinley (Ire) bt L Donald (Eng) 9 and 8

A Cabrera (Arg) bt J M Olázabal (Sp) 4 and 3

M Campbell (NZ) bt S Elkington (Aus) at the 37th hole