Golf

Weather plays havoc with schedule

Players fight boredom brought on by day of fog and uncertainty. But if the rain holds off, the forecast calls for a 36-hole marathon on Sunday.

By BOB HARIG
Published June 30, 2006

NEWPORT, R.I. - If you could get close enough to the scoreboard that is supposed to provide a clear and easy view off the 18th fairway, the message kind of put the day in perspective: "Smile, you could be at work."

For thousands of spectators who milled about Newport Country Club on Thursday, waiting for something to happen and never getting to see a golf ball struck, that was their consolation.

But for most in the 156-player field whose work is competitive golf, frustration turned to boredom turned to understanding.

Not a drop of rain fell, but nobody hit a shot at the 61st U.S. Women's Open because of unrelenting daylong fog.

Morning tee times that were to begin at 7 kept getting pushed back until finally, just before 3 p.m., play was called.

"It's hard to hit a golf ball when you can't see anything," LPGA Tour player Paula Creamer said.

Standing behind the first tee, a par 5, you could barely see to the forward tees on the hole. From the entrance to the course, the huge Victorian clubhouse was barely visible through the haze.

Mike Davis, the senior director of rules and competitions for the United States Golf Association, said play would have started had it been deemed that players could see the landing area for their tee shots or the flag stick and green from the fairway for their approach shots.

"That's what held us back," Davis said. "We can't remember a time at one of our national championships where it's actually caused an all-day delay the way it did."

The plan was to start the first round this morning - the forecast called for showers, giving way to sunshine in the afternoon - with the second round to be played Saturday. The 36-hole cut to the top 60 and ties and anyone within 10 of the lead will be made, and the hope is to play 36 holes on Sunday.

If the tournament can get that far without further weather delays, players will be grouped in threesomes Sunday and will go off both the first and 10th tees. They will not be regrouped between the third and fourth rounds.

"Once we got here, I think most of us kind of knew that after two or three hours it wasn't going to happen," Laura Diaz said. "It wasn't getting better, it was getting worse. There is nothing anybody could do. The good news is we're all in the same situation."

Mi Hyun Kim arrived at 6 a.m. because she was scheduled to tee off at 7:40. But she could not leave the course because there was always the possibility that the fog would clear. So she found a spot on the locker room floor and tried to sleep.

"All I did was eat, sleep, eat, sleep," she said. "After that, I'm glad we're not playing."

Weather already had been the big story here. The area has received more than 13 inches of rain in the past month, including more than 3 inches over the weekend. That figured to make the historic 6,564-yard course play even longer.

Despite fears of bad weather Thursday, there was no rain. Just fog that rolled in off the Atlantic and made for a strange day.

"There is a little silver lining in this," Davis said. "We were supposed to get rain and we didn't get that, so we're probably going to have a better golf course from here on out than we anticipated having."

[Last modified June 30, 2006, 02:56:45]