One group’s arduous trek at THE PLAYERS Championship

PONTE VEDRA BEACH, Fla. – A fan leaned over the nylon rope with his arm extended as Justin Thomas marched to the first tee to start his rain-delayed first round at THE PLAYERS Championship.

“Air bump,” Thomas said as he held out his fist in the direction of the fan.

Collin Morikawa greeted PGA TOUR Commissioner Jay Monahan on his way to the tee, as did Rory McIlroy. The sun shone and all was calm at Golden Hour, nearly 5:56 p.m. Thursday, their new tee time.

The rain had delayed things five-plus hours, but the chaos was just beginning. With 4.8 inches of rain giving way to brutal wind, Group 31’s hellish first round would take parts of three days and 43 hours to complete.

“Bethpage '09 U.S. Open is probably the closest I've experienced to something like this,” McIlroy said after shooting a second-round 73 (2 over total).

What did he do to kill time with his wife, Erica, and daughter, Poppy?

“A lot of ‘Frozen.’ A lot of ‘Peppa Pig.’ A lot of ‘Mickey Mouse Clubhouse.’”

It was less a first round for the ages than a first round that could age you.

McIlroy, Morikawa and Thomas played two holes Thursday, 13 holes Friday, and took up where they’d left off with their second shots at the par-5 16th hole as play restarted at noon Saturday. Their seemingly never-ending first round ended just before 1 p.m. as Thomas doubled 18 to shoot 72, McIlroy was 132nd (of 143) in putting for 73, and Morikawa (also 73) bogeyed 17 and 18.

They were immediately sent back out for more, and Thomas wowed with a 3-under 69 in the wind, second best of the second round (Bubba Watson, 68).

Morikawa shot 75 and was at 4 over.

Tommy Fleetwood and Tom Hoge are co-leaders, but only Fleetwood (even through three holes) has even begun his second round.

The 36-hole cut won’t likely come until around noon Sunday.

“It was very weird, obviously hard to get into a rhythm,” Thomas said of the Round 1 slog. “Had a lot of different emotions; first off thinking it looks like we were on the right side of the draw and being pretty excited about that, and then realizing that was very much not the fact.

“And then just having to get over that as quick as I could,” he continued, “because it's obviously frustrating, especially when I feel like I'm playing well, kind of getting just thrown into something like that.”

He had so much time to think about the tedium of the first round, and how it could have been avoided, he began to fault his scheduling priorities.

“To be perfectly honest, I blame Tiger,” he said, tongue in cheek, “because I played in the afternoon so I could go to his Hall of Fame ceremony (late Wednesday night). If I would have just maybe stuck to my guns and played early, I would have been better. I'm just joking.”

All told, there were 35 of the 72 players in the late Thursday wave who started their opening round that night and ended it Saturday afternoon. Their experiences underline what a strange tournament this has been, and sent some observers scrambling to find comparisons, if any exist.

In 2016, Jaime Diaz wrote in Golf Digest about the 1986 U.S. Women’s Open at the NCR C.C. in Dayton, Ohio: “The championship was first delayed after a railroad tanker derailed and spilled a load of phosphates, which raised clouds of poison smoke throughout the community. Shortly thereafter, the area also experienced heavy lightning storms and a 4.2 earthquake. When the sun finally came out, players complained of flesh-eating flies.”

This PLAYERS hasn’t been that crazy, but it has required near superhuman levels of patience, and a closer look at the featured group of McIlroy, Morikawa and Thomas shows just how much patience.

Morikawa posted on social media that he spent more time warming up than playing Thursday, when the threesome got in exactly two holes and one tee shot – by Morikawa – before darkness halted play. On Friday, after players were taken off the course and play was finally called at 3 p.m., Thomas posted a picture of himself and his dog, Franklin, with the tag: “Rain delay stuff.”

“Not much,” he said, when asked how else he killed time. “We have some good friends that live like 15 minutes away, so we're staying in their house. The Spieths are there with us, so we've just been hanging out. I will say that a dog and a baby keeps the downtime, occupies it a lot easier for the both of us.”

(Jordan Spieth and wife Annie welcomed a son, Sammy, in November.)

The downside for Thomas after his stellar second round was that a Monday finish at TPC Sawgrass, as is now inevitable, means he and his father, Mike, must cancel a trip to Augusta National on Monday and Tuesday.

The bright side is that he, and likely McIlroy, will play on after the cut.

“Yeah, it's unfortunate,” McIlroy said of the weather the last three days, “but hopefully sort of get back on track tomorrow and get this thing going.”