US Women’s Open pushed due to thunderstorms
HOUSTON – The latest U.S. Women’s Open on the calendar will last one more day because of relentless rain that drenched Champions Golf Club and forced the USGA to suspend the final round until Monday.
Hinako Shibuno of Japan, who had a one-shot lead as she goes for a second major, never teed off.
The USGA moved up tee times as early as possible Sunday because of the forecast, and the final round was just over an hour old when thunderstorms in the area caused play to be stopped. It never resumed, with about three-quarters of an inch of rain falling before there was no point in trying to restart.
The turf in the December climate doesn’t drain as quickly. Plus, heavy rain soaked the course Friday after the second round. There was standing water across Champions even during spells when the rain subsided.
The U.S. Women’s Open was postponed from early June because of the COVID-19 pandemic.
It will be the first Monday finish for the U.S. Women’s Open since So Yeon Ryu won at The Broadmoor in Colorado in 2011.
Shibuno won the Women’s British Open last year in her major championship debut – and her first tournament outside Japan – and is bidding to become the third woman to win two majors the first time playing them. Se Ri Pak was the most recent in 1998 at the LPGA Championship and U.S. Women’s Open. She was at 4-under 209, one shot ahead of Amy Olson, the 28-yearold from North Dakota who has not won in her seven years on the LPGA Tour. Only two other players, Moriya Jutanugarn and Ji Yeong Kim2, were under par.
PGA Tour
Matt Kuchar and Harris English broke a bunch of their own QBE Shootout records in a runaway victory Sunday at Tiburon Golf Club.
Kuchar and English became the first team to win the event three times, finished at 37-under 179 to break the mark of 34 under they set in 2013, and won by nine strokes to top their 2013 record of seven.
“That is laughable,” Kuchar said. “It’s hard to fathom just how good of golf that was. It’s funny, as a player you stay in the moment pretty well and don’t think too much about it.”
Five strokes ahead after an 11-under 61 on Saturday in modified alternateshot play, Kuchar and English shot a 60 in better-ball play. English closed birdie-eagle-birdie.
“I didn’t want to put too much thought into us having a five-shot lead coming in today,” English said. “I kind of wanted to put more into seeing what we could do, trying to break the record.”
European Tour
As Matt Fitzpatrick lined up a short putt to win his second World Tour Championship, Lee Westwood was embracing his fiancée in the scoring tent in celebration of a notable achievement of his own.
Moments earlier amid a dramatic end to the most bizarre of years on the European Tour, Westwood – at the venerable age of 47 – had been confirmed as the oldest winner of the season-long Race to Dubai title.
He would be finishing a season as the tour’s No. 1 player for a third time in his career, 20 years after the first.