First off, after watching the Daytona 500 flag to flag for the first time in my life on Sunday, I think I've finally figured out how to distinguish the casual fan from a true NASCAR aficionado. If you find yourself constantly quoting lines from "Talladega Nights" -- Example: when they show the in-car camera angle, you say out loud, "This sticker is dangerous and inconvenient, but I do love Fig Newtons!" -- you're probably the former.

On the other hand, if you saw "Talladega Nights" and found yourself nodding in agreement and couldn't understand why everyone else was laughing, you may be among the latter. (Bonus clue: if you've ever used the word "aficionado" correctly -- as opposed to, "I'm a-fishin' Otto outta the crick" -- you're probably not one of NASCAR.)

I've watched parts of every 500 for the last 25 years, but seeing the whole thing start to finish reminded me how drastically different a NASCAR telecast is from a golf show. The latter often features the dulcet tones of Jim Nantz extending a warm and buttery "Hello, friends" while Daytona commenced with Darrell Waltrip squealing his trademark invocation, "Boogity, boogity, boogity! Let's go racin', boys!" Watching the entire race also helped me understand why Sunday's proceedings left so many NASCAR fans -- read: pretty much everyone who doesn't have Ryan Newman's No. 12 tattooed on their fenders -- wanting more.

I'll concede that Kyle Busch has a limited future as a valet, as evidenced by his inability to parallel park in the pits on Lap 177. But you didn't have to be a gearhead to recognize Busch's No. 18 was Sunday's best car. Now I don't bleed Valvoline, so my uneducated definition of "best car" is something along the lines of "the one that performed at the highest level when going faster than the SpongeBob float in the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade."

Busch dominated the first 160 laps when the race was interrupted by just a pair of yellow flags and the drivers could actually go full speed. The last 40 revolutions, conversely, had five cautions, including two restarts in the final 10. Instead of a Sprint to the finish to determine the fastest car, it looked like a cross between:

a) the scene from "Meet the Parents" when Ben Stiller and Robert DeNiro keep hitting red lights in their stop-and-start race back to the house to check the fake Jinxy's tail for spray paint; and

b) the "Seinfeld" episode in which George feigns disability to land a job and winds up in a low-speed chase with a gang of motorized scooter bullies.

I get the idea that racing isn't just about having the fastest car but also managing the race, i.e. the conditions, the other drivers, when to pit, the mental fatigue, etc. And no sport guarantees that the best performer always wins. But bunching all the cars back together after a crash too harshly penalizes the front runner(s) and rewards those whose primary achievement is that they've done a good job of not getting run over.

I mean seriously, what other competition is so herky-jerky, with constant fits and starts, and completely dependent on the performance of your opponent, where no matter how well you do in one stretch you have to keep starting over?

Exactly. Welcome to the Accenture Match Play Championship, which began Wednesday at The Gallery at Dove Mountain in Arizona. Match play is the closest thing golf has to NASCAR: a bump-and-grind series of sprints wrapped in a survival-of-the-fittest marathon. One minute you're firing on all cylinders, the next you've swapped paint and spun out of the event. Sometimes by your own doing and sometimes by the other driver.

No one knows that better than Tiger Woods, who's won six USGA championships in match play plus a couple of these Accentures. But he's also been bounced by the likes of Peter O'Malley and hasn't made it past the third round since he last won it all in 2004. The No. 1 player in the world and, thus, the tournament's top seed was leaking serious oil in Wednesday's opening round against J.B. Holmes, who just a couple of weeks ago took down second-ranked Phil Mickelson in a playoff up the road in Scottsdale.

Woods was 3 down with five to play before shifting into a gear which apparently only he has. He birdied 14, 15, and 16 to square the match, then engaged his clutch and eagled 17 to go 1 up. Holmes helped a little by taking three to get down from the fringe at 15 and missing a short birdie putt at 18 that would've forced Woods to go an extra lap or two.

How we watch these two sports is where the analogy ends. You turn on a race expecting -- heck, hoping -- to see the cars get tangled up. Golf's different. Everyone says they love to watch match play, but the ratings say otherwise. What most of us really mean is that we love to watch this format if the right players keep advancing. We don't mind an occasional fender bender at events like the Accenture -- that ol' J-Byrd got into the No. 4 car Wednesday and beat him Big and Easy -- as long as we get the matchups we want come the weekend.

Upsets fuel this season's other bracket-bound event, the NCAA basketball tournament, which every year searches for the next Cinderella to enchant the kingdom of college hoops. Not so much at the Accenture. Saddled in years past with final matches like Stricker v. Fulke and Sutherland-McCarron, golf fans pretty much root for the evil stepmother.

You can bet NBC breathed a sigh of relief Wednesday when Woods and Phil Mickelson eked out 1-up wins. They'd love nothing more than to see the game's top two players side-by-side coming down the backstretch Sunday. But that's a lot to ask for when there's so much golf to be played and a wreck waiting to happen at every turn.

Whatever happens over the next few days, there's no turning back now. The race is on. Boogity boogity.

Grant Boone is a husband, father, golf broadcaster, and sports journalist based in Abilene, Texas. An archive of his columns can be found here. He can be contacted at pgagrant@hotmail.com.

The views and opinions expressed here do not reflect those of PGA.com or The PGA of America.