A rainy, old day in Georgia may have provided nourishment for the abundant flora but it provided mainly miserable conditions for players in this 87th edition of the Masters where only Brooks Koepka seemed oblivious to the elements in moving into a four-stroke lead over Jon Rahm when play was suspended during the third round.
Koepka – a four-time Major winner – faces a final day’s play of 30 holes if he is to add the green jacket to his US Open and US PGA titles but he created a four-shot cushion over Rahm who, in turn, established a gap of three shots to Sam Bennett in third.
For Shane Lowry, a good morning’s work in the rain to complete his second round had been followed by a harder time thereafter and he was two-over through nine holes on the card (and back to two-under for the tournament, 11 shots behind Koepka) when the sound of the siren signalled a suspension of the day’s play.
Séamus Power, meanwhile, was one-over on his round through nine holes (two-over for the tournament in tied-40th) when play was brought to an end as greens, even with the SubAir system sucking water to a subterranean place, flooded and further play was impossible.
With a forecast of dry weather for Sunday’s final round, it would seem that sufficient progress was made on a rainy Saturday to ensure that the tournament will finish on time without any need to move into a Monday.
Lowry had gone into the third round looking for his putter to provide some inspiration in making an upward move.
“I am going to need to play really well and I am going to need some help from Brooks and Jon but you just never know. That is the great thing about this game, they say it starts on the back nine on Sunday. If I can get myself within a few shots of the lead going into the back nine tomorrow, you never know. Stranger things have happened,” said Lowry.
However, Lowry’s nine holes of his third round produced only one birdie, on the third, to go with three bogeys (on the first, fourth and ninth) to turn in 38 strokes and drop back into a share of tied-17th. His final act of the day was to mark his approach shot which had finished on the fringe of the 10th green.
Koepka was impressive in how he went about his business in the rain, recording a birdie – on the Par 5 second – and five pars in the six holes he managed of his third round, while main challenger Rahm dropped a shot in the same stretch of holes. The Spaniard also birdied the second but suffered back-to-back bogeys on the fourth and fifth holes as the rain fell heavily.
Of combatting the weather conditions, Koepka remarked: “It’s super difficult, the ball is not going anywhere. You’ve got rain to deal with, it’s freezing cold. You’ve got to make some pressure putts, a difficult day. You’ve just got to grind through it and try to salvage something.”
Ricky Elliott, like all caddies, was kept busy in marrying his yardage duties with ensuring that Koepka kept dry and focused. “I’m not too concerned about playing [30] holes, it’s part of the deal. I’m pretty sure I’ll be up for it considering it is the Masters. I don’t think anybody should have a problem with that,” said Koepka, who won on the LIV Golf tour in Florida last week. ahead of the Masters.
In believing the Masters committee had made the call to suspend play at the right time, Rahm explained: “Obviously when we walked up to the seventh green it was clear to us that that green had been wet for a while. They had been squeegeeing it for a while. I understand they’re trying to push us to play as many holes as possible, but it was very apparent when they tried to get the water out that it just wasn’t going to happen in our case. I don’t blame them for wanting us to play as much as possible.”
Tiger Woods survived the cut on the mark and joined Gary Player and Fred Couples for the players with the longest consecutive streak of made cuts in the Masters (23) but physically laboured in the conditions of the third round and was six-over for seven holes played (nine-over for the tournament, in 54th and last place of those who survived the cut).
