Justin Rose was so close to completing his second round last night in the USPGA Championship. Close, but not close enough
Three things golfers hate: missed cuts, flight delays and having to come back to the golf course at dawn to play one last hole of a tournament round before then waiting six hours to start the next round. Golfers are creatures of routine – they have to be – and an overnight delay to a tournament round is a routine wrecking ball.
It happened during the second round of The Open at St Andrews last month and it has happened again in the second round of the 2015 USPGA Championship at Whistling Straits, where Justin Rose and his group were on the 17th green last night, with the second-round finishing line in sight, when the claxon sounded over the Straits Course. The players took the signal like a shot in the back as their Saturday morning lie-in blew irretrievably across Lake Michigan.
Rose, playing with Geoff Ogilvy and Brandt Snedeker, took the blame for the claxon for speaking too soon.
“I opened my big mouth to the boys playing with us,” said Rose after coming off the 17th green. “I said, ‘the end is in sight’, and 30 seconds later they blew the horn. So my name is mud. I didn't think we wouldn't finish. I thought the storm would blow through for maybe an hour and then go.
“Calling play for the day is a bit of a drag, because it means we'll come out at 5:00 a.m. and play one hole and then probably - providing I play a good golf hole – I’ll play around two o'clock in the afternoon. That's quite a big window to fill. Do I go back to sleep? Go chill? That's going to be interesting to deal with that tomorrow, but I'm in good position.”
He’s right. Things could be a lot worse for Rose, as the 2013 U.S. Open champ sits just a shot off the nine-under-par lead held by Australian duo Jason Day and Matt Jones.
“I'm making a lot of birdies, which you need to do, and I’m putting much better,” said Rose, who will resume play at 7:00am this morning (1pm GMT). “So I’m excited for the weekend. I think you'll still see some birdies on [Saturday] afternoon. So I need to continue to make birdies and continue to go low. That is going to be the rule.”
Story courtesy of Mercedes-Benz, the Official Car of the 2015 PGA Championship
