Second round to be continued on Saturday
Updated: March 25, 2005, 7:01 PM ET
Associated Press
PONTE VEDRA BEACH, Fla. - The 17th hole was still the only island green Friday on the TPC at Sawgrass.
But just barely.
The second round of The Players Championship lasted all of 44 minutes before rain saturated the Stadium Course and left half the fairways unplayable. Nearly seven hours later, officials had no choice but to send players home until 7 a.m. Saturday and figure out what to do next.
"The perfect scenario would be getting the second round in tomorrow," PGA Tour tournament director Mark Russell said. "We really haven't thought much beyond that."
Steve Jones, who opened with a 64 for a one-shot lead, won't play until noon Saturday.
This was the seventh time in 13 tournaments that weather halted play during a round, and it was the second straight week that Mother Nature had thrown a PGA Tour event into chaos. The first round of the Bay Hill Invitational was washed out after three hours, creating three marathon days until a Sunday finish.
Golf's fifth major might not be that lucky.
The forecast includes thunderstorms the rest of the week, and Russell wouldn't rule out anything - a 54-hole tournament for the first time in the 31-year history of The Players Championship, maybe even the first Tuesday finish on the PGA Tour in 25 years.
"We're keeping all our options open," he said.
Still undecided was whether the second round would resume at 7 a.m., or if it would start over. The 30 players on the course were not allowed to lift, clean and place their balls in the fairway. That means the entire second round would have to be played under those terms, even if balls were coated with mud. The only other option is to start over.
That would be welcome news for Ernie Els.
The Big Easy provided the usual dose of craziness for such a short day of work. He hit his opening tee shot so far to the right that it nearly landed in the caddie's parking lot. He blasted off pine straw back toward the fairway, and it took one bounce and struck Lee Janzen in the right hip.
Asked if he had ever been hit on the PGA Tour, Janzen replied, "And it wasn't an amateur?"
Els then missed the green with a sand wedge and was facing a 12-foot putt just to save bogey. If the round has to start anew, he would return to the first tee.
Skip Kendall and Joe Ogilvie were both 2 under for their rounds after two holes, with Kendall holing a 35-yard chip for eagle on the par-5 second. Those starts would be erased if officials deemed there was too much mud.
Most players were stunned that the tour did not allow them to lift, clean and place, especially with rain in the forecast through the weekend. Some already dealt with mud balls under sunny conditions Thursday, perhaps none worse thanRobert Allenby on the par-5 16th when he hit two in the water and made a triple-bogey 8.
"I aimed at the tree left of the green," he said. "It was closer to the 17th hole."
The PGA Tour prefers to play the ball down, although it is quick to go to lift, clean and place when it rains at regular tour events. Janzen was among those who believe The Players Championship gets special treatment.
"I guess if your philosophy is you're not going to play it up regardless because of what you think other governing bodies would do ...," Janzen said, referring to those who run the U.S. Open, British Open and the Masters.
"The mind-set is they would never play it up, so why would we? But I think if you've got conditions that are iffy and you need to play golf, then you need to do it."
Russell said officials decided to play the ball down because of a forecast that made it look like the northeastern tip of Florida would miss the heavy stuff.
"We thought there was a good possibility we'd get lucky," he said.
This year? Fat chance.
The grounds crew planned to work into the night and return at 4 a.m., with hopes of getting the course ready to resume the second round. Russell wants to play the ball down, "the way golf is meant to be played."
"But we're just going to have to look at the conditions and see what they dictate," he said.
The tour is certainly well-rehearsed for these conditions.
There was fog in San Diego, wind in Phoenix and rain just about everywhere else. The worst was the Nissan Open at Riviera, where it took four days to play 36 holes, and Adam Scott beat Chad Campbell in a one-hole playoff for a victory that didn't even count in the record books.
Players are getting accustomed to spending their time indoors, comparing locker rooms instead of scorecards.
"This has a bigger locker room, but Bay Hill was better because I live there,"Charles Howell III said.
Vijay Singh (67) ripped his opening tee shot down the middle on No. 10 when his day ended at 8:44 a.m.
Tiger Woods (70) worked on his game at the back of the range after the round was suspended Friday afternoon. Phil Mickelson (70) usually shows up four hours before the start of his round to work on his game. But when he arrived at Sawgrass in a steady rain, all he could was take his caddie to breakfast.
Copyright 2005 by The Associated Press
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