I agree with you, Boomer. As the sentiment goes, “play it as it lies.”

What if the tee times are rejiggered and then it fails to rain the next day? We are back at square one, with an “unfair” set of tee times that helped one group of players over another, except now the grubby fingers of organizers are all over the results. Sometimes it’s best just to leave things to chance.

And frankly, the people who run golf tournaments have enough on their plates as is. Hang out at the scoring area of even a regional junior golf tournament and you’ll see the controlled chaos involved in shepherding dozens of players around a golf course in a competitive environment while enforcing a 200-page rule book on a five-mile-long track. Bringing subjective decisions that involve inconsistent, unpredictable weather reports into the equation does not make sense.

The “rub of the green” is enshrined in the Rules of Golf–tough luck is a basic tenet of the game. That’s what makes it so compelling both to play and to watch. Many if not most avid golfers would think you have a solution in search of a problem.

Boomer, sorry, you’re stuck with me. Consider yourself lucky You CAN be smarter about it. The problem is, I guess, that the PGA (like every other major sports league) is so rigid that they would never allow there to be thought put behind something like this, never allow tournament organizers to get creative. They COULD adjust on the fly. But they won’t. By the way, I’m not talking about drizzle here. The weather and conditions were severely different for different golfers. If some are going to play in the rain, have them all play in the rain. Make it a total mockery. That’d be great! “The leader at the end of the first round is Woody Austin, who shot a 12-over 82.” Now THAT I’d watch!!

“Change the rules! Be smart about when you send people out. And if some players have to play in the rain before the horn blows, figure out a tee-time system that will send the rest of the players out first the next morning so they have to play in the mud of the early morning.”

This makes absolutely NO sense. “The mud of the early morning”? How do you know it will be muddy the next morning? Are you suggesting that the groundskeepers intentionally mess up the course to equalize the conditions? What if it doesn’t rain again? It’s one thing to complain about unfairness and bad breaks, something at which professional golfers are extremely skilled. They play the best courses in the world every weekend and find something to whine about at each one. But you can’t really believe what you’re writing here. There are no solutions to this problem because the game is played outdoors. It’s physically impossible to get 100-some golfers out on the same course and guarantee equal conditions. If you get the short end of the stick, that’s just the rub of the green.

In the next 3 groups, there were 6 players with world ranking of under 50 and half of them made the cut (or 50% cut rate). Not making the cut was Justin Leonard and while a good player he has never made the cut in a US Open (per ESPN not me)

It is also interesting that Cyd’s stats were for the first 18 players as this excluded the very next pairing of P Harrington, A Cabera and Tiger. If you include them, the stat of those who made the cut shifts up to 29% and improves with each of the next 3 pairings.

If you are going to quote stats, be sure that this gay sports fan accountant can audit them. If I feel there is a bias, I will feel obligated to point it out sorry – lol.

Unless everyone plays at exactly the same time, conditions in golf will always be different. Yes, this was an extreme case but it wasn’t the first and won’t be the last.

Did some guys get the short end of the draw? Yes, but perhaps next time, they will end on the other half. That is why there is always a bit of luck in the game and the scots call it the “rub of the green”. It can be soft wind vs. hard, a bounce off the tree, or full rain vs. sunshine.

Over a career, the greats will still shine through. Look Tiger still finished near the top. As much as I don’t like him, it shows that he was able to over come the rain as a great player would. The reason he didn’t win was the 4 final holes in the first round played +4 when it wasn’t raining anymore.

First, be smarter about how long players have to play in the rain. They sounded the horn around 9:30 a.m. on Thursday when they knew they would have to at some point anyway – the forecast for last Thursday was terrible. Sound the horn earlier.

Second, instead of just resuming where you left off after a rain delay, make the people who haven’t gone out yet go out first so the players who haven’t had to play in the rain get the worst conditions.

Only 4 of the first 18 golfers made the cut. That’s 22%. Of all the rest of the golfers, 43% made the cut. That’s a statistically significant number. Why not do something about it for next time?

Again, this isn’t like football or baseball, when all competitors have to play in the same weather conditions. If everyone was out on the course at the same time, I’d say let them play in snow! But why not find ways to limit the advantage that the luck of the draw can give someone? They already try to do it by flipping the start times around between the first and second rounds. Why not be smarter and more creative when it comes to weather? Why not?

It’s not easy, and it’s not tradition, yeah I know. But to me, sports like golf and tennis should focus a little more on finding a true champion in the majors, instead of “getting the match in.” They’re focused on the TV ratings they can get on a Sunday that they know they won’t get on a Monday.