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Another year, another delay
by Dave Weissman, Columbus Wired
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Delay, delay, delay. Once again the skies opened up at the Memorial Tournament causing play to be stopped for six hours due to flooding rainstorms and unplayable course conditions. This is the 10th time in the last seven years that a Memorial round has not been completed because of inclement weather.

Only 35 players were able to tee off this morning for the second round before play was temporarily suspended. One golfer out on the course was first round leader Steve Flesch who maintained his 6-under par thru four holes with a bogey on 3 and a birdie on 2.

Flesch birdied one other hole (the 9th) to move to 7-under par. With a bogey on 18, he remained at 6-under par tied and for third place.  At least he was able to finish his round and not have to carry it over.  "When you get inside of 18, you want to finish," he said.  "There's a difference between getting up at 5:30 tomorrow morning or getting up at 10 o'clock."

When play finally resumed at 4:30 pm, the skies cleared a bit and that left the golfers with a course that some were able to dial up and pinpoint their shots to the green. Carl Pettersson, playing in his third Memorial,  made the most of his day carding a 5-under par to move into first place with an overall score of 8-under par. He birdied five of the last seven holes.

"I'm happy with my game, I played nice, " Pettersson said.  "There are still a lot of guys to finish (their second round)."

Sean O’Hair maintained his pace from the previous day. He shot 3-under par to move into a first place tie with Pettersson.

Last year’s champion Bart Bryant had 5 bogeys and 3 birdies to end the second round 3-over par, not knowing until tomorrow whether he will make the cut.

When play was finally called due to darkness, there were still 71 players who will be finishing their round early tomorrow morning and then depending on the cut line, starting their third round, which most likely will not finish by the end of play tomorrow. It includes Brett Wetterich (3-under thru 8, 6-under overall), Phil Mickelson (1-over thru 5), Fred Couples (4-over after 10), David Duval and Joey Sindelar.

 

OTHER NOTES:
John Daly drew a crowd at the first hole, but never showed. Officially, he withdrew after injuring his back on the driving range. Unofficially, he was ready to pack it in after an 80 in the first round. Others to withdraw were Shigeki Maruyama, Chris Couch and Steve Lowery. Ryan Moore and Justin Rose were listed as DQ.

Dean Wilson was making his most from the early morning soft and wet greens. After a bogey on 2 to put him at 1-over par for the tournament, he caught fire with birdies on 3, 6 and 8 to get to 2-under par after playing nine holes. The afternoon was not kind to him, however, with bogeys on 11 thru 13 left him plus-1 for the day and pretty much out of it.

Steve Lowery and Billy Andrade welcomed the delay. Lowery was 6-over par after 12, later withdrawing and Andrade had three bogies and a double-bogey thru 8 holes, finishing 8-over par.