Weather Delay Forces 8th Monday Finish at The Players

The Players Championship will have a Monday finish. Midday Friday, officials thought that it might be possible to get another hour or two of play on Friday, which would have allowed a Sunday conclusion.  But when play was canceled for the rest of the day, the Monday finish became a certainty.

Gary Young, chief referee for The Players Championship, said that the course had reached the point of saturation.

“We’ve messaged out players, 11 AM, no earlier,” Young said in a press conference to explain what the weather would do to the tournament schedule. “If our calculations on everything hold together and we’re able to start tomorrow, we certainly expect to be finished with the championship on Monday.”

The tournament will have a normal cut to 65 and ties. Then it will make the pairings for the third round and continue.

Because a large-scale renovation of TPC Sawgrass was done a few years ago, Young feels the course will recover quickly.

“We’ve worked very hard at building a lot of natural drainage into the property through aggressive aerifying and top dressing of fairways and greens,” he said. “That has allowed us to play much longer today than we expected.”

While the course has SubAir, Young said it is primarily to heat and cool Bermudagrass.  He said the PGA Tour’s agronomy staff felt they would not need SubAir to be ready to play.

Rounds will continue to be unfinished each day until Monday’s conclusion.   Saturday, golfers will finish round one and start round two.   Sunday, round two will conclude and round three will start. Monday, round three will conclude, if not finished, and round four will be played.

There were 96 players who finished round one before play stopped, and 47 were still left on the course, according to the PGA Tour. No one had started round two.

Several top-name players were in the middle of good rounds when Friday’s weather arrived.  Jordan Spieth and Justin Thomas were at 2-under par. Jon Rahm, Brooks Koepka and Xander Schauffele were at 3-under par. Dustin Johnson and Scottie Scheffler were at 4-under par. Perennial challenger at TPC Sawgrass, Kevin Kisner was at 4-under while Ryder Cupper Daniel Berger was at 5-under.

The weather plays havoc with more than the schedule.  It affects the action of golf clubs and golf balls.

“It does make it difficult out there for sure. It felt like I had a couple of balls fly a little squirrelly off the driver face,” Justin Rose, who was finished at 2-under par, said about the conditions. “But obviously with the golf course being soft, if you do hit a good shot, it does lead to a good birdie opportunity.”

“The ball’s going nowhere, but it’s calm,” Kevin Kisner said after coming off the course on Friday.  “You’ve got to really be aggressive with your iron shots to make sure you’re hitting enough club for the spin, and getting the ball on the fairway is paramount so you can get your hand on it.”  (Lift, clean and place rules were in effect.)

While it is soggy outside, it’s unlikely that the greens will turn into surfaces like 1994 when Greg Norman set the tournament record of 24-under par.  The greens were wet, and Norman opened with a record-tying 63. He had no bogeys for 54 holes. In addition, he was in control of his irons, hitting shot after shot near flag sticks.  It was like landing balls on a wet sponge.  They hit and stuck to the putting surface.

The Players has had Monday finishes seven times in the past:

In 1974, The Players finished on Labor Day in the US. It was the first version of the Players. The tournament was played at Atlanta Athletic Club.  A dozen golfers had to complete their final rounds on Monday, including the winner, Jack Nicklaus. On that Monday play was stopped due to weather.

In 1976, The Players was held at Inverrary CC which is near Fort Lauderdale, Florida.  It was in the first week of March. The third round had been washed out with thunderstorms.  Round three was played on Sunday with the final day bumped to Monday.  Jack Nicklaus won there also.

In 1981, The Players moved closer to its current location.  It was held at Sawgrass CC in Ponte Vedra Beach, Florida, the third week of March.  Because the final round was washed out with thunderstorms, there was a Monday finish that even included a playoff.  Raymond Floyd triumphed over Curtis Strange and Barry Jaeckel.

By 1983, The Players had found its home at TPC Sawgrass. The tournament was played the last week of March.  Weather on Thursday was bad enough that play didn’t begin until Friday. Two rounds were supposed to be played on Sunday, but the weather moved in, causing the Monday finish.

In 2000, The Players was held the last week in March. Sunday featured Tiger Woods and Hal Sutton battling it out, but rain moved in and the results would not be known until Monday. Hal Sutton had led by a stroke after each of the first three rounds. Sutton was paired with Woods adding to the drama.  On the 18th, after hitting his second shot, Sutton shouted his famous line, “Be the right club today!”

In 2001, The Players moved up to the third week of March.  This happened to be the year of the Tiger Slam, but, in March, we didn’t know it yet.  Weather during the week caused play to finish on Monday.  Woods won his first of two Players’ titles, defeating Vijay Singh. A few weeks later, Woods went on to win the Masters, completing the Tiger Slam.

In 2005, weather caused real scheduling problems for The Players.  The second round was not completed until Sunday.  The third round was played Monday morning and the final round was completed Monday afternoon. Fred Funk, with his gallery of Funk’s Punks, won the championship.

Now we have the eighth delay of the prestigious tournament. At this juncture, it’s too soon to even know who the real contenders are.