As the TimberTech Championship was supposed to begin Friday morning at Broken Sound in Boca Raton, Florida, the state of Florida was just one green blob. Heavy rains were forecasted from coast to coast, forcing tournament officials to postpone the season’s next-to-last PGA Tour Champions event for 24 hours.
The TimberTech will now begin Saturday morning at 7:45 a.m. ET with a double-tee start for the 47-player field.
The tournament is the second in the three-event Charles Schwab Cup playoffs.
“We were hopeful we would have a chance to play today, but there’s more rain coming toward us,” Brian Claar, vice president of rules, competition and administration, said in a statement. “We want to allow the course to recover from the rain that happened overnight and this morning. We feel it is best to reschedule to tomorrow morning.”
To make up for the lost day, players face a 36-hole Saturday with the second round scheduled to begin right after the conclusion of the first round. Groupings will remain the same for both rounds, but the group’s starting hole will be switched from the first round, according to a statement from the Tour.
The tournament’s marquee grouping of Bernhard Langer of Boca Raton, Jim Furyk and Juno Beach’s Ernie Els will tee off at 9:02 a.m. from the 10th tee. Langer, Furyk and Els top the Charles Schwab Cup rankings.
“As we know as locals here, the winds change and it will probably come out of the north,” Els said. “We haven’t played north wind all week, so that’s going to be very, very different.
“A lot of the holes play very differently. Holes that you can go for in two or short par 4s like No. 7 you can go for are probably going to be very different with a change in breeze. But we’ll adapt like every player and go accordingly.”
The Palm Beach Post contributed to this report.