Last year at the WGC-Dell Technologies Match Play, Kevin Kisner lost his first five holes in the finals against Bubba Watson. This time around, he lost seven holes total to Francesco Molinari in the semifinals and Matt Kuchar in the finals. It was Kuchar he defeated 3 and 2 at Austin Country Club on Sunday evening to grab the first WGC crown of his career.

Kisner was one of the last to even get into the knockout stage this week. After losing his first match of the week to (who else?) Ian Poulter, he won the next two but had to defeat Poulter in a sudden death playoff on Friday evening after both golfers went 2-1-0 in the pool play. After that, he was off to the races.

He waxed Haotong Li 6 and 5 on Saturday morning before weathering the storm against Louis Oosthuizen in the quarterfinals after the South African made six birdies. Kisner took him 2 and 1. Then he slayed Europe's Ryder Cup hero, Molinari, on Sunday morning even though Molinari had won 10 straight match play matches.

The finale against Kuchar maybe lacked some of the fireworks of earlier matches as both men, dogged tired from a long week of golf and over 100 holes played, tried to get to the finish line. But Kisner didn't make a bogey on the back nine and outlasted the 2013 champion of this event with a tremendous birdie putt on the par-5 16th to close. 

"I was thinking out there it might be the hardest one [to win] just because you have the physical aspect more than any other week," Kisner told NBC after the third victory of his career. "It was grueling. Overall, it was just a long week, but I prevailed and I'm a World Golf champion."

Kisner is the lowest-ranked player (No. 48 seed) to win here since Geoff Ogilvy did it as the No. 52 seed in 2006, but he also might be the feistiest. While he's not going to blow you away off the tee or with his ball flight, he just keeps coming and keeps coming until you concede (sometimes literally, sometimes figuratively). It's one reason why he should be considered (and probably chosen) for the next few American team play events.

But that's a long time from now, and for the time being, Kisner has won the last big event heading into the Masters, a place where he's never missed a cut but also never finished inside the top 25. We'll see if he can change that two weeks from today, but until then, for the first time, (like he already noted) Kevin Kisner is a World Golf champion. Grade: A+

Here are the rest of our grades for the 2019 WGC-Match Play.

Tiger Woods (QF): Tiger making it to the quarterfinals will be an overrated thing come time for folks to make Masters picks. He didn't hit it particularly well (for him) and only finished two matches with a score better than 1 under (humorously, one of them was his quarterfinal loss). This is how match play starts to distort your reality of how guys are playing. At the same time, that five-hole run against Patrick Cantlay on Friday was dreamy, and I think he's being underrated on the whole at Augusta National because his season on the whole has been better than people think. Grade: A-

Sergio Garcia (QF): It's not a true week of global golf if Sergio Garcia and Matt Kuchar aren't involved in a controversy. Their quarterfinal matchup ended with Garcia wanting Kuchar to concede a hole (!) after he tried to tap in a short putt that would have been conceded and missed. Grade: A (for the drama)

Rory McIlroy (R16): His much anticipated matchup with Tiger Woods in the Round of 16 fell flat. There were only two birdies from McIlroy (and from Woods, for that matter), and McIlroy bailed on talking to the media after his match (before putting an apology on Instagram). Rory hit the ball all right this week -- seventh in the field from tee to green -- but couldn't find the hole with his putter on Saturday morning against Big Cat. 

The entire thing -- from a double from the fairway on the 16th against Woods to the ejection from chatting after the round -- takes the narrative that he was barreling headlong into green jacket No. 1 two weeks from now and raises a few questions about it. I'm not really concerned about his Masters chances, but if I was a 10 of 10 after the Players, I'm like a 9.8 now. Grade: B-

Jordan Spieth (R64): After halving with Billy Horschel and beating Kevin Na, Spieth needed to beat Bubba Watson in a Friday match, but the two-time Masters champ clipped the one-time Masters champ 1 up. For the week, Spieth was ... fine. He was about field average in strokes gained and didn't do anything especially egregious or impressive. Not exactly what you want to hear about somebody hurtling into major No. 1 on the year, but he'll have one more chance to get the train on the tracks next week at the Texas Open. Grade: C-