Rain and more rain is playing havoc with those competing in the Evian Masters and golf’s newest Major Championship.
The poor weather had led to the first round being suspended due to unplayable course conditions. Play has been rescheduled to at 7:45 a.m. local time on Friday morning and will all scores from today (Thursday) erased.
Rain forced first-round tee times to originally be delayed two hours and the first shot of the inaugural Evian Championship was struck at 9:45 a.m.local time. At 10:30 a.m. play was suspended due to rain saturating an already wet golf course, making conditions unplayable.
A green keeper squeegees the 18th green prior to the rain suspension of the 1st round.
Nearly four inches of rain have fallen on the Evian Resort Golf Club since Saturday. The rain combined with unusually hot weather during the month of August has put a lot of stress on a newly renovated golf course.
“The course was in very good shape heading into the last couple of weeks, but the high temperatures really compacted the soil on the new course,” said Heather Daly Donofrio, Senior Vice President of Tour Operations.
“With the excessive rain that we’ve had this week, the course is not able to absorb all the water.
“At the moment, it’s saturated to the point that even if we get a few specific sprinkles, the water is coming up. We had the situation today where we would squeegee at path for the player to putt and the water would come back up before they could execute their shot.”
While officials had hoped to resume play at some point on Thursday, play was suspended for the day at noon local time. A total of 15 players were on the golf course when play was halted but the decision was made to scratch those scores and restart the first round on Friday morning.
“It was pretty wet; I think we’ve just had too much rain and it came down harder than we thought it would,” said Cindy LaCrosse, who was leading at 1-under through one hole when play was suspended. “The greens just couldn’t hold that much water and the right decision was made, unfortunately for me. Hopefully tomorrow is better.”
First and second-round pairings will remain the same. A cut will be made at the conclusion of the second round on Saturday and officials intend to complete both the third and fourth rounds (36 holes) on Sundi it will mean the Evian Masters will be the third Major this year where two rounds will be played on a Sunday, and with poor weather forcing a similar situation in the Ricoh Women’s British Open and Wegmans LPGA Championship.
If play is unable to be completed on Sunday then organisers will take the event into a Monday finish.
