MARANA, Ariz. — Defending champion Hunter Mahan survived a snowstorm earlier in the week, endured subsequent cold spells and conquered every opponent he faced to reach the final of the World Golf Championships-Accenture Match Play Championship at frosty Dove Mountain.

But he had no answer for Matt Kuchar.

ANCHORING BAN: PGA Tour opposes proposal

As steady as it was cold and windy on Sunday in the hills north of Tucson — but nonetheless smiling throughout the chilly day — Kuchar claimed his first WGC title with a 2-and-1 victory against Mahan in the first All-American final in five years.

With temperatures barely reaching 50 and the wind-chill factor making it feel like it was barely north of 35, Kuchar jumped out to a big lead by winning four of five holes starting at No. 4. Kuchar, who had lost to the eventual champion the last two years, held off Mahan on the back nine to win $1.5 million.

"I'm not sure I can explain how excited I am to have won this tournament," said Kuchar, who won the 1997 U.S. Amateur. "Match play I find to be such an amazing, unique format, so much fun to play and so much pressure. It seems like each hole there's so much momentum riding and so much pressure on every hole. To come out on top after six matches of playing guys, the top 64 guys in the world, it's an incredible feeling."

With winds gusting to 35 mph, Kuchar was 4 up before Mahan won both the 10th and 11th holes and knocked his tee shot on the par-3 12th to 6 feet. But Kuchar blunted Mahan's momentum by sinking a 14-footer for birdie. Kuchar then went 3 up with a birdie from 3 feet on the 13th hole.

Mahan didn't go quietly and knocked a 7-iron to two feet to win the 14th. Both made birdie on No. 15 but Mahan won No. 16 with a par to cut the deficit to one hole. Kuchar, however, closed out Mahan and the match on the next hole as Mahan got unlucky with a bad lie in the fairway bunker and hit his second shot into a bush. Kuchar, meanwhile, knocked his approach to 5 feet.

Kuchar, who captured his fifth PGA tour title, trailed for only three holes in the tournament, two in his first-round win against Hiroyuki Fujita and for one hole in his semifinal win against Jason Day, and never had to play the 18th hole.

He reached the final with a 4-and-3 victory against Day. Mahan defeated Ian Poulter, 4 and 3.

"He played a fantastic back side, just really kind of put the pressure back on me," Kuchar said. "Every hole was just so difficult with the conditions the way they were today that there was just a bogey around any corner, and Hunter made a couple birdies there to put some pressure on me.

" … I did a great job of being excited to hit the next shot. I knew that if I was to have a lapse of any sort mentally, physically, just to have a little lapse that the match could swing, momentum could swing pretty quickly.

"So I enjoyed being out there. I had a great time, but I was also very focused on what I was doing."

Mahan was trying to win his 12th consecutive match — one short of the record set by Tiger Woods. Mahan, stretching back to last year, had not trailed in 169 consecutive holes before losing the fourth hole to Kuchar. Mahan, who won $875,000, never led in the final.

"There wasn't a facet of the game that the wind wasn't going to affect you," Mahan said. "I thought I hit a couple putts early that were affected by the wind. The cold, it's just hard to keep your hands warm and keep a sense of feel. Every time you grip the club, the grip is cold and it feels hard, and so sometimes your feels are just a little bit off.

"It was just difficult to play golf. But absolutely every facet of your game was tested today. Kuch, he deserved to win because he did a better job in every facet than I did."

Day won the consolation match, 1 up, against Poulter, the European Ryder Cup hero who lost both matches on Sunday after coming into the day with a 19-3-2 match-play record around the world the past four years.