Deutsche Bank Championship: Hurricane Earl likely to impact Boston tee party
By: Emily Kay on 09/02/10 05:14 PMNORTON, Mass., Sept. 2 -- With Hurricane Earl continuing its destructive march to the northeast, the PGA Tour will deploy a strike force to clean up the TPC Boston golf course when the maelstrom bears down on the Deutsche Bank Championship.
Army of people. “[Course superintendent] Tom Brodeur will have an army of people here on Saturday morning if need be,” tour rules official Mark Russell told reporters late Thursday afternoon. “[They’ll be out there] in the middle of the night, if weather permits. They’ll do everything in their power to get the golf course playable.”
The actual route of the storm is still debatable and tour officials are hoping it veers farther east than current projections. If Earl continues on its projected course, however, it will be a somewhat weakened Category 2 storm, packing winds of 96 m.p.h. to 100 m.p.h., by the time it slams the island of Nantucket Friday night.
The golf course is some 35 miles or so west of Nantucket, which means golfers can expect at least some impact, no matter which way the storm blows. The tour’s onsite meteorologist Stewart Williams still expects the outer bands of the hurricane to start dropping heavy rain that could include thunder and lightning, and blowing gusts of up to 50 m.p.h. sometime between noon and 2 p.m. Friday.
Minimize projectiles. While the drought that New England has experienced all summer may help the course absorb the two to four inches of rain expected, it won’t help deal with the anticipated damage from falling trees and power lines or flying objects. Crews will begin Friday to strip smaller tents and pack up chairs, trash cans, and other light objects “to minimize our projectiles,” Williams said.
On the course, Brodeur’s staff will cut the greens once instead of the usual double cut, and won’t roll them. The hope is that slowing the greens down some six to eight inches (or from an 11.8 to an 11 on the stimpmeter) will minimize the oscillation of golf balls on putting surfaces during wind gusts (See: British Open).
The bottom line is that golfers will tee off in 12-minute intervals starting at 7 a.m. Friday and play as long as it’s safe to do so.
Play all we can. “We’re going to come in in the morning and start playing golf and play all we can,” Russell said. Officials will stop the action in time to get the players off the course, spectators to shelter or their cars and on the road home.
“We can play in a little wind but we can’t handle lightning,” Russell said. “As long as we can play golf under the rules, we’re going to play. But if the winds [start] blowing the balls around on the greens, we can’t play, or if the rains put the greens under water, we can’t play.
“We won’t take a chance with the weather,” Russell added. “A Category 2 hurricane is serious business.”
(Emily Kay is a regular contributor to New England Golf Monthly. Check her out at the Boston Golf Examiner and National Golf Examiner websites.)
