Bad weather to hit BMW Championship

New Orleans was largely spared the wrath of Hurricane Gustav, but the BMW Championship will not be so lucky.

It is unlikely any play will be possible on Thursday, when the first round is scheduled, as the remnants of Gustav set their sights on St Louis.

Up to two inches of rain is forecast for Wednesday night, with a “100% chance” of more than two additional inches on Thursday.

No matter how well the Bellerive course drains, it is difficult to envisage any play if the forecast is accurate.

The silver lining for the PGA Tour is that the small 69-man field should allow officials to cram 36 holes into one day if necessary, and still finish on time on Sunday.

The tour’s FedEx Cup play-off series, now in its second year, was supposed to create some excitement as the game’s best players vied for a 10 million bonus awarded to the series winner.

But with two play-offs down and two to go, it would take a miraculous set of circumstances for anyone other than Vijay Singh to top the points standings after the Tour Championship.

Singh has already won the first two events and has a massive lead in the standings – 120,500 points compared with the 108,275 points earned by second-placed Sergio Garcia.

Even if Garcia wins this week and Singh finishes last, Singh will still lead by more than 3,000 points going into the Tour Championship.

So Garcia probably needs to win one of the two remaining events, and finish no worse than second in the other, to have any chance of catching Singh.

Of course, it can be argued that there is no reason for fans to care about which multi-millionaire picks up a $10m (€6.8m) bonus anyway.

Singh, after all, has already won more than $60m (€41m) in career earnings on the PGA Tour alone. An additional $10m (€6.8m), while not chump change, is hardly likely to change his life.

Meanwhile, it has emerged that Rocco Mediate was the only player that American Ryder Cup captain Paul Azinger called on Tuesday morning with bad news.

Mediate was quietly confident of earning one of Azinger’s four captain’s picks, but was overlooked as Steve Stricker, JB Holmes, Hunter Mahan and Chad Campbell got the nod instead.

Mediate compared the bad news with the disappointment of losing that titanic play-off to Tiger Woods at the United States Open in June.

“All he said was, ’Roc, I didn’t pick you’. He didn’t give a reason,” Mediate told the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review. “I’m extremely sad and extremely disappointed.

“I missed one cut in my last 12 events. That’s pretty good. I’ve had a couple of mediocre weeks, too, but that’s just being human.

“Without a doubt, this is some of the best golf I’ve played, the best run of golf I’ve ever had.

“Everything that I accomplished at the US Open was overlooked, and that’s very disappointing. It didn’t matter what I did there.”

Although disappointed, Mediate has only himself to blame. He cooked his goose with his poor form over the last month, failing to crack a top-50 finish in his final four starts before the team was named.

“I tried my hardest, and if what I did since June wasn’t good enough, what can I do? I’ve never been this close and right now, it just hurts a lot. I’m not feeling really good about anything right now.

“Obviously, everything was predicated on the last couple of weeks, and that’s too bad.”

At 45, Mediate, who has never played a Ryder Cup, is unlikely to get another chance, but he said he would not let the disappointment ruin his friendship with Azinger.

“He’s a good man and a friend,” Mediate added. “I respect him and his choices. Paul, I love the guy. The guys he chose will be just fine. I just thought I was going to be one of them.”