PONTE VEDRA BEACH, Fla. — A long week for the competitors in the PGA Tour Q-School presented by Korn Ferry — physically and psychologically — might get even longer thanks to severe weather predicted to hit the First Coast Saturday night and into Sunday.
Heavy rain and high wind are due to sweep through the First Coast from a front out of the Gulf of Mexico, bringing wind that may gust as high as 50 mph and between 2-4 inches of rain before it clears out on Sunday.
That brings about the possibility of a Monday finish. The qualifier has recent history of having to go an extra day. The 2021 qualifier in Savannah lost an entire tournament day before ending on Monday.
The tournament was played under its best weather conditions of the week on Friday with the sun peeking through high clouds and lighter wind than the day before as 162 players chase five PGA Tour cards for the 2024 season, plus full Korn Ferry Tour status for the next 40.
Tee times moved up, Monday finish is looming
But it will get nasty again on Saturday afternoon and the PGA Tour is moving the third-round tee times from 8:20 a.m. at the TPC Sawgrass Dye’s Valley Course and the Sawgrass Country Club to 7:30 a.m., with the hopes of finishing before the weather takes a turn for the worse.
Tour officials said that if necessary, the tournament will be finished on Monday. The 72-hole event calls for each competitor to play two rounds at the Valley and two rounds at Sawgrass, and with the latter course playing decidedly more difficult — the scoring average was more than two strokes higher than the Valley in Thursday’s first round — it would a competitive disadvantage to shorten the tournament to 54 holes but have half the field play two rounds at Sawgrass and one at the Valley.
#firstalertwx weekend soaker centered on late Sat. through midday Sunday + a lot of wind. @ActionNewsJax @WOKVNews pic.twitter.com/1Zzwkv2scF
— Mike Buresh (@MikeFirstAlert) December 15, 2023
Tournament infrastructure is minimal
Volunteer chairman Lee Nimnicht said the good news is that there were no large corporate tents and other areas of infrastructure for the tournament since public attendance has been light at the Valley Course. Rounds at Sawgrass, a private course, have not been open to the public.
Ninmicht, who is also the 2024 volunteer chairman for The Players, has a volunteer force of around 300 people (The Players has 2,200 volunteers) and most of them also volunteer at The Players.
He said they are ready to deal with whatever Mother Nature throws at the course and is confident he’ll have enough volunteers should a Monday finish be required.
“We’ll batten down whatever small tents there are and hope the weather isn’t as bad as they think it’s going to be,” he said. “We’re here to support the tournament and the players for as long as they’re playing golf.”
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