News
Unremitting rain postpones final round of BMW Championship, threatens to cancel it and make Justin Rose the winner
Hunter Martin
The final round of the BMW Championship on Sunday was postponed by unremitting rain that now hints at the final round actually having been played on Saturday.
Yes, there is a possibility that the third event in FedEx Cup playoffs will be a 54-hole tournament, in which case Justin Rose will have won because of a costly 18th-hole bogey by Xander Schauffele at Aronimink Golf Club on Saturday.
The forecast in the Philadelphia region (among others) for Monday is problematical, too.
"What I'm seeing, as this front lifts north of us during the morning hours tomorrow, I think the showers could become a bit more scattered," meteorologist Joe Halvorson said. "So, there's a potential that after, say, five a.m. that we can avoid those showers, potentially the course could be completely drained. This window that I'm looking at is from eight to about two tomorrow and still going to be scattered showers in the area, but they'll be lighter, and then after two what I'm seeing is the potential for thunderstorms to begin to develop."
As for Sunday, "we just had so much saturation out there,” Slugger White, vice president of rules and competition for the PGA Tour, said. “We had iffy fairways, sloshy tee boxes, the greens were fine, the bunkers were OK, but we just had a golf course we just couldn’t play. We just can’t push water around. We’ve gotten more than three inches of rain since last night and today. We’re kind of sailing against the tide.
“We will do everything we can to play tomorrow. We’ll just see what mother nature gives us. We’ll have to wait until tomorrow morning to see.”
Tee times for Monday begin at 7:30 a.m. (EDT) with the leaders going off at 9:20, weather permitting, of course. Golf Channel's coverage is scheduled to begin at 10 a.m. (EDT).
Rose shot a six-under par 64 on Saturday to take a one-stroke lead over Schauffele and Rory McIlroy. A washout would result in Rose overtaking Dustin Johnson as No. 1 in the World Ranking. It also likely would end whatever chance Schauffele might have had at securing the final spot on the U.S. Ryder Cup team.
Schauffele himself figured his only chance to convince captain Jim Furyk to select him was to win the BMW Championship, and at that he considered it remote.
In all likelihood, Furyk is ready to name Tony Finau to round out the U.S. team.
Furyk’s announcement originally was scheduled to occur at at 9 a.m. (EDT) on Monday, though it was postponed.