Golf:The second round of the Bob Hope Classic has been postponed until Friday because of unplayable conditions at La Quinta, California today.
Organisers had initially pushed back the scheduled tee times by two hours due to heavy overnight rain before eventually abandoning play for the day.
"It's a mess," said Slugger White, PGA Tour vice president for rules and competition. "I've been coming out here for a long time and I never seen anything like this.
"The unfortunate part is we have got places down there that we can't even pump water to because there's homes on each side.
"We're looking at this (heavy rain) to continue to build in. Hopefully by midnight we'll start seeing some drying out and tomorrow morning we're looking at scattered showers again.
"So we pretty much (have) got our hands full right now until tomorrow morning."
White said a Monday finish was possible after the five-round pro-am celebrity event had lost an entire day's play for only the third time in 51 editions.
The last time a full day's play was washed out at the Bob Hope Classic was in the first round of the 1980 tournament.
Although further rain has been forecast for Friday, it is expected to be much lighter than the thunderstorms and possible flooding predicted for Thursday afternoon.
Little-known American Shane Bertsch held the first-round lead after firing a 10-under-par 62 on the Nicklaus Private course at PGA West, one of four venues hosting the 90-hole event.
Rookie Alex Prugh, making only his third appearance on the PGA Tour, and fellow American Jeff Quinney recorded matching 64s on the same Nicklaus layout to share second place.
American Pat Perez, who won last year's title by three shots, opened with a 68 at the SilverRock Resort, the most difficult of the four venues.