The PGA Tour expected this at the beginning of the week. The Genesis Open was always going to be a scheduling challenge with a nasty weather forecast right in the heart of the tournament at Riviera.
2017 Genesis Open at Riviera: Tee times, pairings for Sunday’s round
After horrendous storms hammered LA, the Genesis Open will need to speed through 36 holes in limited daylight on Sunday at Riviera.
At the start of the week, it was possible that all of Friday and Saturday could be washed out by some massive storms coming off the Pacific and hitting Southern California. Riviera got hit and took on a ton of water, but it could have been much worse and they were juuuuust south of the most severe stuff hammering the greater Los Angeles area.
We got a better-than-expected amount of play in on Friday before things were called just after noon for the day as strong winds took down a huge tree near the third green. And Saturday wasn’t too bad either, with the players back in place and playing again just before 9 a.m. local. It started later than the crack of dawn because the grounds crews had to clean up the damage, mostly done to bunkers, from the 2.9 inches of rain measured overnight at the classic George Thomas layout.
The PGA Tour got through the entirety of the second round on Saturday, made the cut late in the afternoon, and then immediately started sending the remaining field out in groups of three off two tees for the third round. But it was already late, and given the time of year with limited daylight, very little of the third round was going to be played at Riv. The leaders did not get close to the first tee before play was called due to darkness at 5:43 p.m. local. Dustin Johnson had a 6 p.m. tee time, so that wasn’t going to work.
On Sunday, players will be back in position at 9:50 a.m. ET/6:50 a.m. PT, and the final two tee times will roll off the 1st and 10th tees. The third-round tee times were spread across a two-hour window, which is common on the weekends on the PGA Tour when it’s hustling to beat bad weather. The two-tee threesomes practice runs like a well-oiled machine at this point, but it’s still going to be a race getting a full 72 holes done before dark on Sunday night. The PGA Tour is confident, however, and they will not re-pair the players for the fourth round.
Here’s what remains of the third-round tee sheet:
Off No. 1 tee:
- 6:50 AM — Jhonattan Vegas, Patrick Rodgers, J.T. Poston
- 10:00 AM — Dustin Johnson, Pat Perez, Cameron Tringale
Off No. 10 tee:
- 9:50 AM — Mark Hubbard, Webb Simpson, Brendan Steele
- 10:00 AM — Nick Taylor, Jonathan Garrick
DJ and that final pairing won’t be done with their third round until 2 p.m. ET/11 a.m. PT at the very earliest — it will likely be 30 minutes later than that. The Tour will turn them around instantly, as it did late Saturday night, and send them right back out there on what will be a marathon Sunday. Not re-pairing for the fourth round means that everyone will just play with the same players they were out with in the third round. So there’s no waiting around for all the scores to come in and then putting the players together according to score, as is custom.
The weather will cooperate on Sunday, but things will have to move both in the morning and then once they are sent right back out there for the fourth round. We will update when the fourth round tee sheet comes in this afternoon.
UPDATE: The fourth round tee sheet will span this two-hour stretch — same groups as the third round morning session.
It will be tight be we are on track for Sunday night finish.
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