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PGA Championship: weather, course conditions create challenge

By Tim Letcher

SAN FRANCISCO, CALIFORNIA - AUGUST 05: Cameron Smith of Australia and Rickie Fowler of the United States walk up the fairduring a practice round prior to the 2020 PGA Championship at TPC Harding Park on August 05, 2020 in San Francisco, California. (Photo by Tom Pennington/Getty Images)
SAN FRANCISCO, CALIFORNIA - AUGUST 05: Cameron Smith of Australia and Rickie Fowler of the United States walk up the fairduring a practice round prior to the 2020 PGA Championship at TPC Harding Park on August 05, 2020 in San Francisco, California. (Photo by Tom Pennington/Getty Images) /
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The PGA Championship will get underway on Thursday in less than ideal weather conditions. Those, in addition to the course setup, will make for a challenging day for the world’s best players

As the world’s best golfers gather for the first major of the season, the PGA Championship, the storyline may be more about what the players can’t control than what they can. Namely, the course conditions and the weather.

Play is scheduled to start on Thursday morning at TPC Harding Park in San Francisco, and it already looks like one of those cool Northern California mornings. When play begins, it will be around 57 degrees with 95 percent humidity. That will make for a very cool morning for those who have to tee off early in the round.

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But, those players may just get to deal with the cold and not with the wind. As the day warms up (expected high of 63 degrees), the wind also increases. In fact, as the afternoon groups are playing, they may face winds of up to 20 miles per hour. That will make the course play much differently for the afternoon groupings.

There has also been quite a bit of talk about the course conditions at TPC Harding Park, which opened 95 years ago. The PGA of America has set the course up with very thick rough which will definitely punish players who miss fairways. Odds are that the greens will also be very fast, making it an even bigger challenge.

The weather and the course conditions will work together to make the setup more challenging for the players.

When the weather is colder, the ball will not travel as far which makes the course play even longer. And when the wind blows in the afternoon, finding the fairway will be very important, especially considering the punishing rough.

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While the world’s best players will be converging on San Francisco this week, they will not be greeted with a welcome mat. Instead, they will face a challenging golf course that’s going to play even tougher, especially on Thursday, because of the weather conditions.

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