Liberty National avoided the brunt of the wind from Hurricane Henri, but not the rain that forced the final round of The Northern Trust to finish on Monday.
That was the hope, anyway.
Jon Rahm and Cameron Smith finished the third round Saturday tied for the lead at 16-under 197, one shot ahead of Erik van Rooyen.
The PGA Tour decided before the third round even began that Henri posed too much danger for players, spectators and volunteers to be at Liberty National on Sunday. Officials came to the course along the Hudson River and found the course to be in reasonable shape.
“Really good for 5 inches of rain,” said John Mutch, the PGA Tour rules official overseeing the event. “They were working on the bunkers when I was there. There’s not a whole lot of standing water. I was pleased. I’ve seen a lot worse.”
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Smith said he wouldn’t be spending his day off on Sunday getting a haircut, instead committing to keeping his “good luck charm” mullet for a while yet.
“It’s like my good luck charm. I can’t cut if off at the minute,” he said.
“Maybe a couple of bad months of golf and it’ll come off but until then, it’s staying.”
It’s understood that if the final round isn’t able to take place on Monday, or if a majority of the players are unable to finish their round, the tournament will be shortened to 54 holes and a sudden-death playoff between the leaders would decide a champion.
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A steady rain kept falling into early Sunday afternoon.
Mutch planned to check on it later in the day and decide then, along with an updated forecast, when the players would begin the final round. Some pop-up storms were possible late Monday afternoon.
The course was built on a former landfill and drains relatively well.
It was no small task to prepare for Henri, which was downgraded to a tropical storm before it made landfall Sunday in Rhode Island.
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Hours after Smith had set the course record with a 60 — he missed a 12-foot putt for a 59 — and Rahm finished with a par for a 67 to share the lead, workers at Liberty National worked well into Saturday night securing anything that might blow away.
The portable toilets were bundled and fastened. The ShotLink cameras that measure every shot on every hole were taken down. All the metal fences that formed lines for the ferry across the river to Manhattan or the walkway for players going to the practice range were secured.
Those need to be replaced before the final round can begin.
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As for the players, it was a rare day off.
They last had an entire washed out during the Zozo Championship outside Tokyo in the fall of 2019. The BMW Championship at Aronimink outside Philadelphia was washed out on Sunday, leading to a Monday finish. In that case, the decision to postpone was not announced in advance.
Several players were staying in Manhattan, ordinarily a good place to be to sit out a delay, except it was messy to get around.
There was plenty at stake in the PGA Tour postseason, not least a $2.39 million pay cheque for the winner and the top 70 in the lucrative FedEx Cup standings after this tournament advance to the BMW Championship, which starts Thursday outside Baltimore.
Keith Mitchell was at No. 101. He is in a six-way tie for 11th place and currently is projected to move up to No. 69, which would get him into the BMW Championship. Tom Hoge was at No. 108 and in a three-way tie for sixth at Liberty National, projected to move to No. 57.
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Van Rooyen was in position to win at one shot out of the lead, and his travel schedule suddenly became a lot less complicated.
The South African arrived at Liberty National at No. 76 and planning to play next week, whether that was at Baltimore or Switzerland for the Omega European Masters.
Van Rooyen won the Barracuda Championship two weeks ago for his first PGA Tour title. With the points now worth quadruple value, he appeared certain to extend his tour season one way or another.
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