Rain delays practice rounds for Michelle Wie, other LPGA pros

Posted: July 4, 2015 9:35 pm

There was practice, but no practice rounds, at wet, rainy Lancaster Country Club Saturday.

It rained fairly hard Saturday morning, but the rain had eased and essentially stopped by early afternoon. By that point, it had already been announced that tournament officials had closed the course for the day to players preparing for the U.S. Women’s Open.

The practice facilities remained open, and about 12-15 players were hanging around the club, including Na Yeon Choi, who won the LPGA Tour event last week in Arkansas and is seventh on the tour’s money list.

And not including Michelle Wie, last year’s Women’s Open champion, who had scheduled a practice round for Saturday morning. She postponed it until noon due to the rain, and then cancelled for the day after the course was closed.

Wie played L.C.C. Thursday, and reportedly had signed up to play Friday and Saturday. She will play some golf Sunday, according to a spokesman, and at long last meet with the local media.

Wie did release a brief video, via social media Saturday, showing off her new red, white and blue golf bag, provided by one of her sponsors, the automaker Kia, from what looked very much like the L.C.C. parking lot.

Grim forecast: They could have played golf Saturday if they had to, of course. The cancellation was a nod to a sobering reality: It’s becoming increasingly clear that weather is going to be a big part of the story this week.

As of Saturday afternoon, the Weather Channel forecast for Lancaster calls for at least a 30 percent chance of rain seven straight days beginning Monday, including all four tournament rounds July 9-12.

Tickets, revisited: One more update, from tournament director Barry Deach: Badges for the 1761 Club, an air-conditioned hangout near the 13th tee at L.C.C., are now sold out at $225 for the week.

Multi-day packages have long since been sold out. Deach said single-day tickets are 89 percent sold for Saturday’s third round and 93 percent sold for Sunday’s third round. Tickets for the first two rounds (Thursday and Friday, $45) and the practice rounds (Monday through Wednesday, $20) are available, and are expected to be available the day of the round at the main gate.

For more information, go to www.uswomensopen.com.

Here’s an odd thing that happened: The original version for L.C.C. of the yardage book the United States Golf Association provides to players and their caddies included a drawing and notes for the 10th green on the 18th hole.

The books are produced by Mark Long, a former PGA Tour caddy whose company, Tour Sherpa, provides yardage and green-diagram books for most PGA Tour events, the Ryder Cup and many LPGA tournaments.

Long finished his notes on L.C.C. a  couple weeks ago and produced the book. Some books were sent here before the error was caught, but it was caught and corrected.

“Every single one of the bad ones has been discarded,” Matt Sawicki, U.S.G.A. Director of Championships, said Saturday. “The last thing we want is a player coming to 18 on Sunday with a chance to win and looking at (information on) the wrong green.”