BETHPAGE, NY – Let’s start with what we know – the U.S.G.A. will not shorten the U.S. Open.
“The U.S.G.A. is firm on this, that we will not determine a national champion until we play 72 holes,” affirmed U.S.G.A. vice president Jim Hyler with steely conviction.
After that, everything is up in the air because of more than an inch of rain that has turned Bethpage into Bathpage, as one irreverent wag of a golf writer quipped.
Play was canceled for the day at 2:15 after only 78 players began the first round. The furthest anyone got was eleven holes, including the leader, unknown Jeff Brehaut, a 46-year old Nationwide Tour player from Mountain View, California, who was 1-under, along with Johan Edfors, Andrew Parr, and Ryan Spears, all of whop played only three or four holes.
Ian Poulter, Justin Leonard, masters Champion Angel Cabrera, and long-hitting Bubba Watson were all at even par after six or seven holes. A log-jam of twenty-nine players at 1-over included defending champion Tiger Woods, three-time major winner Vijay Singh, former U.S. Open champions Geoff Ogilvy and Jim Furyk, K.J. Choi, Steve Stricker, and Henrik Stenson
Rory Sabbatini and Padraig Harrington were the biggest names struggling out of the gate. Each was 4-over after nine and six holes respectively. Harrington marked a putt for bogey at the seventh hole as the weather siren pealed to suspend play.
Worse still, the Open will not likely finish on Sunday:
“The plan for tomorrow is we’re going to resume play at 7:30 a.m. we’re going to open practice facilities up at 6:00 a.m., and by roughly 7:00 that means players are in their shuttle vehicles heading out to all parts of the golf course. So it’s essentially almost like a shotgun start at 7:30 tomorrow. We will start what was today supposed to be the afternoon wave. So those players teeing off at 12:30 today, they will be going off at 10:00 a.m. tomorrow morning. And then we will start Round 2 at 4:00 p.m. So we obviously anticipate getting a decent amount of golf in, and then obviously Round 2 will spill over into Saturday,” said competitions director Mike Davis.
“What we don’t know right now is what Jim just said: Our meteorologists are telling us that it is very likely that we can get another inch plus of rain on Saturday, he finished with a clearly troubled look. Meanwhile, tournament officials huddles in the media tent dining room laying groundwork to execute both plan A and other contingencies based on the prediction that Saturday could be as wet a washout as today.
Jim Hyler said the goal, of course, was to finish on Sunday, but Davis admitted that might be impossible and that Monday or even Tuesday could see the final round spillover.
