Writing from Beach Park, Illinois
Monday, August 14, 2023
Four years ago, the above headline was used to report the first-round washout of the 98th Illinois PGA Championship at Ruth Lake Golf Club. Brian Carroll was in the clubhouse with a morning 66 only to see a mid-day thunderstorm halt and eventually cancel the day’s play. His score, and all of the others, was wiped out.
Monday, Carroll was leading the 102nd Illinois PGA Championship at ThunderHawk Golf Course, a Robert Trent Jones Jr. creation nestled within a Lake County Forest Preserve. He was 3-under through 11 holes and leading five players by a stroke. At 11:17 a.m., with rain pelting down, the horn blew suspending play. Wave after wave of rain came through, and eventually lightning joined the party. At 2 p.m., Illinois PGA officials bowed to the inevitable and canceled the day’s play, wiping out the scores.
While the weather station at nearby Waukegan Airport tallied only .70 inches of rain through the cancellation announcement, the dark clouds hanging over ThunderHawk said otherwise. The puddling on the greens and the new stream washing over the 18th fairway were indicative of the inability to continue, even before the lightning played through.
The revised 36-hole section championship will be restarted on Tuesday morning, weather permitting.
For the record, Carroll, representing The Hawk in St. Charles, led Kyle Donovan (Oak Park), Andrew Adamsick (Conway Farms), Matt Rion (Briarwood), Nick Papadakes (Onwentsia) and Garrett Chaussard (Skokie) by a stroke. None of the leaders had completed more than 12 holes.
The afternoon half of the field was more than an hour from starting. Under Illinois PGA rules – which are similar to rules used by the PGA Tour prior to the 1970s, when it was run by the PGA of America – if half the field can’t finish in a particular day, the round is wiped out and started over.
In this case, because the Illinois PGA only has use of the course through Wednesday, the original 54-hole format is reduced to 36 holes with no cut.
– Tim Cronin