Rain pain as Els shot hits Janzen

ONLY 44 minutes’ play was possible on the second day of golf’s richest event, the £4.5 million Players Championship, at Sawgrass yesterday.

But that was long enough for world number three Ernie Els to hit playing partner Lee Janzen.

Els, one under par overnight and seven shots behind leader Steve Jones, had struck a wild drive off the opening tee 80 yards right of where he was aiming.

The ball finished on pine needles and because a bush was in the way the South African could not go for the green and decided to play back onto the fairway.

Janzen, however, was there preparing for his next shot and did not see the ball coming.

“I thought it was going to hit him on the head,” said Els’ caddie Ricci Roberts.

“I shouted ‘Fore,’ but there wasn’t time for him to get out of the way. Thankfully, though, the ball hit the ground just in front of him and caught him on the leg.”

Janzen was okay to continue and hit his approach to the edge of the green.

But Els’ 118-yard pitch flew horribly right again and when the siren to suspend play sounded he had already chipped to 12 feet and needed to hole that to avoid a double bogey six.

The 2002 Open champion then spent most of the day waiting to see if he could return to the green, but at 3.30pm there was still no resumption.

The forecast for the weekend is even worse, raising the possibility of the sport’s unofficial fifth major going into Monday. Or even further. It was only last month the Nissan Open in Los Angeles became the first US Tour event for nine years to be reduced to 36 holes, Adam Scott eventually beating Chad Campbell in a one-hole play-off held on Monday morning just so a winner could be declared.

The first day’s play in the Accenture world match play championship in San Diego two days later was a complete wash-out and there have been countless delays elsewhere. Seven of the 13 tournaments so far have been affected.

Only 30 of the 144-strong field had managed to tee off again and the leaderboard remained unaltered.

Steve Jones, at 743rd the lowest-ranked player taking part after more than a year out following elbow surgery, was one ahead of Lee Westwood, Fred Funk and Zach Johnson.

World number one Vijay Singh, round in a five under 67 on Thursday for a share of eighth place with Padraig Harrington, was another who did tee off, but hit only one shot, a good drive down the 10th.

All options are being considered by officials and one of them is that if this morning is bad the second round could start all over again with preferred lies.

That would be good news for Els, enabling him to wipe out the four strokes he has taken on the first already.

The intention is for him to resume on the green at 7am and for the halfway cut to remain at the top 70 and ties, although that could be reduced to 60 to fit in 36 holes on Sunday.

More likely in view of the expected weather is for the event to go into a fifth day on Monday.