With the Governor declaring a 'State of Emergency" due to the impending beating New Jersey is about to receive from Hurricane Irene, a golf tournament becomes the least of priorities in the scheme of things, however it must be dealt with as best as possible given the circumstances so here, minutes ago is the PGA tour's decision.
EDISON, N.J. – The PGA TOUR announced Friday that The Barclays, the first of four events in the PGA TOUR Playoffs for the FedExCup, will be shortened from a 72-hole event to 54 holes, due to the impending threat of Hurricane Irene, which is forecast to move up the East Coast and into the Tri-State area on Sunday.
New Jersey Governor Chris Christie signed a state of emergency on Thursday in advance of Hurricane Irene’s arrival, which threatens to cause severe flooding and damage this weekend, and forecasters issued a hurricane warning for much of New Jersey early Friday morning.
The Barclays, being held for the first time at Plainfield Country Club, is now scheduled to end on Saturday prior to the onset of bad weather.
“We weighed all the options available to us, and under normal circumstances, we would obviously prefer to complete 72 holes,” PGA TOUR Commissioner Tim Finchem said. “That’s even more true here at The Barclays, considering that this is such an important event to our players as they look to advance through the PGA TOUR Playoffs for the FedExCup. But these aren’t normal circumstances.
“We realize that ‘waiting it out’ until Hurricane Irene passes and trying to play golf on Monday or Tuesday would only add unnecessary strain to those who will be trying to help the community recover from whatever potential damage this storm causes. The safety of the community, our fans, players, sponsor guests, television partners and staff is of the utmost importance.”
Slugger White, the TOUR’s vice presidents of rules and competition, said that tee times for Saturday’s third round will be moved up, with players starting their rounds between 7 a.m.-9 a.m. ET, going off two tees in threesomes.
“With the extreme weather conditions that we have got staring us in the face right now, Sunday obviously is not going to be here,” White said. “We are looking upwards to maybe 10 to 12 inches of rain between Saturday night and Sunday evening, and … in no way we can get out of here Monday and it puts Tuesday out, as well.”
In fact, with 30-50 mph winds forecast for Saturday afternoon and a steady rain expected to start at 2 p.m. ET, the possibility exists that not all 18 holes will be completed on Saturday. If that’s the case, then the tournament will revert back to the 36-hole leaderboard.
With tee times moved up, though, officials expect to get all 18 holes of the third round in on Saturday. Should there be a tie after 54 holes, a playoff will be held to determine the winner. FedExCup points will be awarded in the same amount no matter if the tournament ends after 36 or 54 holes.
So the course is very soft and as a result scores are low, -14 leads currently with round 2 well under way.
David Hearn is at -6, T17 through 16 after an opening 67, he is our lone Canuck
The Red Sox have already cancelled Sunday's home game and will try to play a double header on Saturday.
Here is the current leaderboard with happy Matt Kuchar in the lead at -14 (63,65)..
http://www.pgatour.com/r/leaderboard/
I will update this with a wrap later this evening
Bryan Angus also on twitter@mummmbles
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