ST. ANDREWS, Scotland — The British Open was stopped just 32 minutes after it resumed Saturday morning when gusts of up to 40 mph (64 kph) blew golf balls across the green and contributed to Dustin Johnson making bogey to fall into a share of the lead.
The second weather delay — rain on Friday, wind on Saturday — meant the first Monday finish in the British Open since 1988.
The R&A was hopeful of resuming the second round at 4 p.m. The third round is set for Sunday and the final round on Monday. The last major to end on Monday (without a playoff) was the 2009 U.S. Open at Bethpage Black won by Lucas Glover.
The R&A was criticized for even resuming the second round. Louis Oosthuizen, who got the good end of the weather when he won at St. Andrews in 2010, had a tap-in for par when a gust blew his golf ball a few feet away. As he stopped and smiled in disbelief, another gust moved it even further away.
About that time, Brooks Koepka tried to mark his ball five times on the 11th green – the most exposed on the golf course with the Eden Estuary on one side and St. Andrews Bay on the other – when play was halted.
R&A rules director David Rickman said his staff spent an hour on the 11th green without seeing a ball move, leading to the decision to try to play.
“What we weren’t expecting when we made the decision to go was the wind picked up,” he said. “We picked up 10 percent — 4 mph (6.5 kph) — in the half-hour after we started. We were close to the edge, anyway. That was the difference. As an administrator, my heart sank. Because I thought, ‘This has changed.’ It was always going to be a difficult day.”
Jordan Spieth, going after the third leg of the Grand Slam, was caught on television saying, “We never should have started.”
Thumbnail photo via Steve Flynn/USA TODAY Sports Images
