[ad_1]
PONTE VEDRA BEACH, Fla. – Welcome to a March Players, where the cold, the wet and the rain have already worn down the field – and we’re still at least a day away from the 36-hole cut.
When the PGA Tour relocated its showcase event from May to March in 2019, this week’s trudge was always on the menu. North Florida in March can be perfect, like it has largely been since The Players returned to the spring, or it can look like Friday’s radar that was drenched in ominous blobs of yellow and red as a massive storm inched its way over TPC Sawgrass.
But as bad as the first two days have been, it’s Saturday’s forecast that players have been eyeing wearily all week. The Tour’s own forecast calls for a “high impact weather day” as a cold front pushes through the area. There’s a 100% chance of storms from 9 to 11 a.m.
That’s when things get interesting.
Behind the front, winds switch out of the northeast at 20-30 mph with gusts up to 35 mph. That intensity would make any course dramatically more difficult, but at TPC Sawgrass, a northeast wind creates an entirely new course.
When the Tour moved The Players to May in 2007, it left behind the worries of those northeast winds and fierce cold fronts. An entire generation of Tour players have never stood on the iconic 17th tee facing a cold and heavy 30 mph wind. That seems likely to change on Saturday.
“We’ve been lucky my entire career playing it into an east to south wind, so it is either off the right or helping,” said Billy Horschel, who played his first Players in 2013. “When the wind is going to blow that hard, it changes the hole.”
Play suspended again on Friday at The Players Championship
There are a few players in this week’s field who have experience with those types of conditions. Henrik Stenson played his first Players in 2006 and tied for third in similarly cold and wet conditions.
“I’ve played it plenty of times in some really tough conditions, brutal conditions and 17 is definitely…
[ad_2]
Source : yahoo
