The 48th staging of the Players Championship is destined to be better known for disruption than the identity of its champion. After torrential rain and approaching electric storms halted play at Sawgrass on Friday morning, the PGA Tour said a Monday finish had become inevitable. That the tournament, worth $20m in prize money, could run into Tuesday was not completely dismissed.
“The potential is there,” said the event’s chief referee, Gary Young, of a Tuesday conclusion. “But let’s hope not. We feel very confident that we can finish this tournament by Monday.
“We have received about 2.5 inches of rain in the last 24 hours. We battled through some pretty tough conditions this morning. The staff did a great job keeping up with the greens as much as we could, trying to manage play through some really difficult [storm] cells that we were facing.
“Unfortunately, we have reached a point where there’s just no window behind this area that we’re moving into. There’s some lightning that is headed in this direction. We knew it was just going to be a point where we’re just going to be battling too hard to keep up. The golf course has reached a point where it’s unplayable.”
Competitors were removed from the stadium course at 11.15am. They were informed at 3pm there would be no more Friday play.
The situation is further complicated by gusting winds of up to 60mph in the forecast for Saturday. “We know that with the conditions we’re going to be facing [on Saturday], the pace of play is going to be slower as well,” said Young. Golf will therefore not resume until at least 11am.
The start of play was delayed by an hour on Thursday morning before a further four and a quarter hour stoppage.
Incessant rain on Friday created huge puddles in greens and bunkers. Questions will undoubtedly be raised about the shifting of this competition back to March from its previous May slot, when it was staged between 2007 and 2018.
Young added: “It is highly, highly unusual to have this [weather] pattern for this prolonged period at this time of the year, looking back at the historical data on it. It’s just bad luck.”
Tommy Fleetwood, who opened with a 66 on Thursday, was afforded a blank day on Friday after an adjusted second round starting time became impossible due to the latest delay. Jason Day produced a 69 after finishing his first round on Friday morning. Rory McIlroy was one over through 15 holes when the horn blew.
