Top seed Rory McIlroy has been handed a placed in a tricky group for the new-look WGC-Cadillac Match Play Championship in San Francisco after being drawn against Billy Horschel, Brandt Snedeker and Jason Dufner.

The new edition of the tournament now sees the top 16 players in the world placed in different groups of four, with the others competitors drawn from pools depending on their current rankings.

The groups of four players will then compete in a round-robin until Friday, with the winner then advancing.

McIlroy will be up against it given the three Americans have all shown decent form over the last few months. Sneaker and Herschel have both won the FedEx Cup in the past, while Dufner won the PGA Championship in 2013.

The winner of that group faces the winner of Group 16 which will see Hideki Matsuyama face off against Kevin Na, Joost Luiten and Alexander Levy.

Masters winner Jordan Spieth will take on Lee Westwood, Mikko Ilonen and Matt Every, while Justin Rose may fancy his chances in his group.

The Englishman is now up to sixth in the world rankings after his win at the Zurich Classic and he must beat Ryan Palmer, Anirban Lahiri and Marc Leishman to reach the next round of the tournament.

10th seed Sergio Garcia is in an all-European group which includes Jamie Donaldson, Bernd Wiesberger and Tommy Fleetwood. Speaking ahead of the tournament, Donaldson insists there will be no easy matches.

He told Golf Channel: “It’s an all-European group so it will be pretty friendly I think but no easy matches.”