Weather Wreaks Havoc on Day One at the U.S. Open
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Leading up to the start of the U.S. Open, Merion Golf Club had received its fair share of rain. With the remnants of Tropical Storm Andrea making its way through the Philadelphia area last Friday and a cold front causing more rain on Monday and Tuesday, the course had received close to six inches of rain in five days (the typical average rain fall totals for the area is about three inches for the entire month of June).
Some dryer weather came Tuesday afternoon and Wednesday, however a storm moved in from the Midwest on Thursday and wreaked havoc on Thursday’s opening round. Two separate weather delays affected all 156 players in the event and caused the first round to be extended into Friday.
The first delay came around 8:30am yesterday morning and lasted a little over three hours. With only 57 golfers on the course when the first delay hit, the USGA had to delay the tee times of the rest of the field, pushing back the afternoon wave of tee times by three hours.
The second delay came late in the afternoon with the afternoon marquee group of Tiger Woods, Rory Mcllroy, and Adam Scott finishing up their front nine. While it was only a short delay, the second stoppage guaranteed that the first round would have to be finished early Friday morning. While there is no rain scheduled in the forecast for Friday, the fact that the first round had to be finished Friday morning will likely result in round two rolling into Saturday.
When the dust settled and round one finally came to an end, Phil Mickelson found himself at the top of the leaderboard with a score of 3 under par. Mickelson was one of the 57 golfers on the course when the first delay took place early in the morning, but that wasn’t even the strangest part of his day. With Mickelson’s daughter’s eighth grade graduation taking place Wednesday night across the country in California, Phil took a red-eye flight late Wednesday night/Early Thursday morning back to Merion, landing in Philadelphia a little after 3:00am Thursday morning. The lack of sleep didn’t seem to faze Mickelson much (he took advantage of the weather delay by getting in a nap) as he shot his best opening round at a U.S. Open in his career.
Mickelson holds a one shot lead over Bears Club resident Luke Donald. Donald was one of the golfers who had to return to the course early Friday morning to finish his first round. Donald, however, might have preferred to play in the dark last night over the extra rest before this morning. Donald was four under through 13 holes when the horn sounded ending play last night including a stretch of three birdies in a row. He could not replicate his success on Friday morning finishing the final five holes at 2 over to shoot 68 in his opening round.
As for that marquee group of Woods, Scott, and Mcllroy, they can all only hope that round two brings more success. All three failed to break par and combined for a first round score of 8 over par. Woods struggled to get going in his first round carding just three birdies and six bogeys. The Jupiter Island resident struggled to find the fairway early on and appeared to injure himself battling out of the thick rough that is synonymous with the U.S. Open. Mcllroy and Scott struggled when play resumed Friday morning. Mcllroy went into Friday at even par, but with course conditions more difficult, the Palm Beach Gardens resident finished the round with three bogeys in his final four holes to join Woods at 3 over. Like Donald, Scott might have preferred to stay on the course Thursday night and just play in the dark. Scott was cruising along at 3 under and just one shot back of Donald when the horn went off to suspend play. He returned Friday morning and carded three pars, three bogeys, and a double bogey and went from 3 under to 2 over.
In addition to Donald, the only other local golfers who shot par or better were Old Palm residents Charl Schwartzel and Lee Westwood and Loxahatchee River resident Rickie Fowler. All three shot an even par 70 in their first rounds.
For complete coverage of the U.S. Open as well as complete up to the minute leaderboard, visit www.usopen.com.
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