2012 PGA Championship: Joost Luiten Is Holding Up Tee Times

Wondering why there are no tee times for Saturday’s third round of the PGA Championship? It’s Joost Luiten’s fault. You may not know Luiten -- though he did shoot to the top of the leaderboard on Thursday -- but you’ll probably get to know him soon. After all, he’s the one holding up play at the moment.

Here’s the situation: Luiten, already having a bad day, opted not to play the 18th on Friday. It was getting dark and play was technically suspended for darkness. His playing partners went ahead and finished up their rounds, but Luiten opted not to.

It should be noted that Thomas Aiken, one of his partners, missed the cut but recorded a par on 18. His other playing partner, Alan Morin, was nowhere near making the cut and bogeyed 18.

Luiten was already 5-over for the day by the time he got to 18, so maybe he was hoping to wakeup and try and birdie the hole on Saturday. Or maybe he was just angry. Whatever the case, he didn’t want to play. And as a result, his Saturday is kind of going to be a pain in the butt.

Most professionals like to sprint, basically, to get 18 in if play is about to be called for darkness. It’s not fun to get up at the crack of dawn to finish a round, only to turn around and play the next round a few hours later. That’s time that could be better spent sleeping in.

So here we are, with the second round not technically complete. Luiten is inside the cut line by a comfortable margin, but has to come back and play the 18th at 7:30 a.m. Because his performance will determine the tee times, the PGA Tour can’t release them. We do, however, know that Tiger Woods and Vijay Singh will be in the final pairing. Both are tied for the lead at 4-under.