Snow delays opening matches

MARANA, Ariz.—Bundled in a winter jacket in a chilly tent near the snow-covered driving range, Mark Russell was asked where the opening day of the Match Play Championship ranked among his bizarre weather experiences.
“It’s right there,” said Russell, the PGA Tour’s vice-president of competition.

And Russell has been on the job for more than 30 years.
First-round play in the World Golf Championships event was suspended yesterday when rain that came down sideways quickly gave way to snow from a winter storm that dumped close to two inches on Dove Mountain in about an hour.
The temperature plunged to 33 degrees F at the cactus-lined layout 2,800 feet above sea level.
“I’ve seen snow on the course when I was a kid, but nothing like that on any of the tours. It was crazy,” said top-ranked Rory McIlroy, one of 20 players in the 64-man field who never even made it to the first tee at the Ritz-Carlton Club.
Tiger Woods also was in one of the 10 matches that didn’t start. He was to begin play today against Charles Howell III while McIlroy faced Shane Lowry.
Barring a likely frost delay, play was scheduled to resume at 8:30 a.m. today, with the second-round set to start early in the afternoon.
The field is cut in half after each round and, with sunshine in the forecast the rest of the week, it shouldn’t be difficult to get caught up.
“We’ve got a lot of possibilities with this small field,” Russell noted.
Sergio Garcia, in the lead-off match, had just holed a 10-foot par putt to win the 15th hole and go 2 up over Thongchai Jaidee when play was suspended.
Ian Poulter’s only other tournament this year was on Maui for the Tournament of Champions, where it took four days just to get started because of high wind.
“I can’t believe it. When have we ever seen that?” he said, taking off his rain gear in front of his locker.
“The two events I’ve attempted to play this year have been three days of 50 m.p.h. wind and two inches of snow in an hour,” Poulter added.
“It’s absolutely, flippin’ unbelievable.”
What does that say for the rest of the year?
“Can’t get worse,” Poulter remarked. “Just incredible. Bizarre.
“Have you ever seen it? Especially where we are.”
Maybe he should consider himself lucky. At least he didn’t play Torrey Pines, where fog wiped out an entire round Saturday and Woods had to wait until Monday to polish off his 75th career victory.
And there were frost delays in the opening rounds at Phoenix. But snow?
“I remember one year in Vegas in a collegiate tournament it was sleeting,” recalled Webb Simpson, who played one shot yesterday.
“We all charged toboggans to our coach in the pro shop and he wasn’t too happy about it.
“This is crazy weather,” Simpson added. “But we’ve got a great forecast for the weekend, so hopefully, it will melt tonight [Wednesday].”