Sure, they needed some rain in New Jersey but not like the deluge that hit Baltusrol late Monday.
Torrential rains pounded the setting for the 2016 PGA Championship, creating new rivers in the fairways and filling bunkers like swimming pools.
That meant a ton of work for the grounds crews, with help from other course maintenance staffs in the area, a huge team was needed to work through the night just to prepare for the week’s heaviest practice round day.
Tuesday at a major is when the bulk of the prep work goes on, Wednesday is a wind-down day before Thursday’s start.
Which brings us to the question of this week’s weather there in Springfield.
There could be some problems.
We turn to the weather experts to find that Thursday will be a heat-fest and that only means one thing — storms are coming.
The forecast calls for a 90 percent chance of Friday storms, which spells bad news for the field. Could be delays, could push the Friday round into Saturday morning, upsetting the tee-times apple cart. Players going late Thursday and early Friday just might have an advantage.
Good news for the weekend is that it will cool off but storms are still in the picture.
That’s the problem with late summer majors in the northeast.
Thunderstorms are not a play-on conditions like rain at the Open Championship.
This could turn into a start-stop, start-stop scenario come Friday.
And that’s simply no fun for anyone.
