The final round of the BMW Championship was postponed by unremitting rain that now hints at the final round actually having been already played.
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 in the third round.
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, 5am that we can avoid those showers, potentially the course could be completely drained. This window that I’m looking at is from 8 to about 2 tomorrow and still going to be scattered showers in the area, but they’ll be lighter, and then after 2 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 US 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 7:30am (9:30pm tonight AEST) with the leaders going off at 9:20 local time, weather permitting, of course.
Rose shot a six-under par 64 in round three 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 US 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 US team.
Furyk’s announcement originally was scheduled to occur at at 9am tomorrow, US time, though it was postponed.
