Rain reigns in 'sunshine state'

For the third time in six years golf’s richest event, the £4.5million Players Championship, needs an extra day to find a winner.

But the 2000 and 2001 delays had nothing on this.

When Sawgrass in Florida received yet another drenching today joint leaders Luke Donald and Joe Durant still had most of their third rounds as well as the fourth still to play.

Lee Westwood is in the same boat – almost literally.

When play was suspended at 2.30pm he was one behind along with defending champion Adam Scott and Durant’s fellow Americans Tim Herron and Zach Johnson.

After Friday’s washout and a three-hour delay yesterday the latest thunderstorm was the worst of the lot.

The forecast is better for tomorrow, but it needs to be with the tournament so far behind.

A Tuesday finish is not out of the question – and that would be the first on the US Tour for 25 years.

So much for Florida being America’s “Sunshine State”.

Donald had added a 68 to his opening 66 when the beleaguered tournament finally managed to complete its second round during the morning.

When he went out again after lunch a two-putt birdie on the long second lifted him to 11 under par.

It brought him back alongside 40-year-old Durant, who had birdied the first, but Ryder Cup team-mate Westwood, another of the four halfway leaders, had to work hard for three opening pars and had just driven in the rough on the next when the sirens sounded to clear the course.

Ulsterman Graeme McDowell was still very much in the hunt, holing from off the green at the third and at eight under being in a share for eighth at an event he did not have a place in until he finished joint second at the Bay Hill Invitational last week.

But Padraig Harrington, runner-up the last two years and winner of his first US Tour title two weeks ago, had fallen back, first with a second round 73 and then by going to the turn in 37.

At three under the Dubliner was in a tie for 40th.

As for the sport’s “Fab Four” Phil Mickelson was the only one threatening to force himself into the heart of the action.

The Masters champion was joint 13th, while Ernie Els was lying 32nd and both Vijay Singh and Tiger Woods 52nd.

Earlier the battle for the £800,000 first prize was very nearly overshadowed by Woods’ battle to survive the cut, which he did in the end with nothing to spare.

Westwood completed his second round yesterday, but Donald still had five to play when play resumed.

The former Walker Cup star, who had missed the cut on his two previous visits, played them in one under, grabbing a birdie at the long 16th despite hooking his drive into the trees.

“I’ve lost track of time,” joked the 27-year-old from High Wycombe. His second round had finished nearly 56 hours after his first round began.

“Delays are the same for everybody, but I’m glad to be done and in a good position,” he added.

After two lucky breaks in his first round – a narrow escape from the water on the 18th and a deflection of a tree to eight feet on the ninth, which he then birdied – he acknowledged more fortune at the 16th.

The ball was resting against pine cones, but instead of having to just chop out onto the fairway he had a gap in front of him and could advance the ball 150 yards.

He said: “You never know what the contact will be because of the cones.

“I had to draw it and if I didn’t it would have been in the water, but it worked out perfectly.”

He pitched to five feet for birdie and then parred the last two, although at the last it needed a nine-foot putt after he drove into the rough.

Harrington, a reluctant competitor with his 72-year-old father Patrick fighting cancer, said of his morning nine holes: “It was not that difficult, but it felt difficult playing in a gusting wind.

“Another day you would not think there was much of a breeze, but it felt awkward.”

Harrington went in the water at the 11th and island green 17th – the first time he had ever missed the target there.

Darren Clarke and Nick Faldo were one under after five and nine holes, but Justin Rose missed the cut by one, Paul Casey by two, David Howell by three and Ian Poulter by five after a quintuple bogey nine on the 14th.

His was not the worst score of the day, though. Australian Andre Stolz put three drives in the lake at the 447-yard last for an 11 – two more than the tournament record.