The Tour says that 41 of 82 players must finish the third round of play for the Zurich Classic to be a 54 hole event.
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Brian Stuard and Jhonattan Vegas sit atop the leaderboard on 13-under, but only managed to get through five holes.
Third-round leader Gerina Piller, the area resident seeking her first tour victory, birdied the final hole for a 73 to tie for second with South Koreans Amy Yang and Mi Jung Hur.
Stuard did not make a start to his third round but the American did complete his second, playing just six holes for a 68 to reach 12 under at TPC Louisiana.
Sounds insane? Sure, but this is even crazier: seven of the last eight Zurich Classic rounds have now been delayed by weather after Sunday got nearly totally washed out due the absurd amount of rain currently falling on New Orleans. The problem with that is a 36-hole victor wouldn’t be an official PGA Tour win.
Though Jason Day remained optimistic in an interview during the delay, the forecast for the course looks dicey through the rest of the day as well as all of Sunday.
“I’ve had a pretty decent season, just keep doing what I’m doing”, he said.
“Obviously we would like to play 72 holes but that’s looking more unlikely”.
With the first group on the 15th hole, there would need to be about a three-hour window of play Monday for 41 players to complete 54 holes.
“I knew it was going to be an extremely long day, so I just kind of kept the mentality and hit one shot at a time and just played as hard as I can”. Another bogey would follow on 17, his eighth hole, as he completed the back nine to par. Because there is a lot of sitting around, a lot of eating, and all that other stuff.
“Just try not to get ahead of yourself”, Stuard said.
The Lahinch player battled the severely testing conditions to card a four-over-par 77 along with England’s Gemma Clews.
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Piller has hit 52 of 54 greens in regulation, with the two misses coming in the first round.
