Earthquakes and laziness make for a suboptimal blog post

Where does a short video of a 4.7 earthquake striking during a live Tennis Channel broadcast fit into a sports weather blog? Hmmmm. I'm not sure it does, but I'm posting the video anyway. Why? Because it's mildly interesting to say the most.

And in case you missed it, a sinkhole swallowed a guy on a golf course, but the golfer is ok. I think this happened in Illinois, but I'm not sure and I haven't done the research. Man, I'm lazy today.

And I'm sure there were a handful of rained out or snowed out college baseball games today.

That's your sports weather blog update for the moment. Enjoy the new pope.

Just use yellow balls, fellas

Snow in Arizona? At a PGA event?

You bet!

This Associated Press photo shows snow falling on the ninth green – I'll take their word for it because I can't see a flippin' thing – Wednesday at the Match Play Championship tournament in Marana, Ariz.

If you're wondering if the golfers played through… you're crazy. Of course they didn't play through. What kind of question is that?

Play was suspended for the day.

PGA's Groundhog Day

Associated Press

Where I live in Southwest Virginia, and I imagine this is true for most of the population in the United States, people, particularly in the winter, talk a lot of traveling to Hawaii to escape the dark, cold days ahead.

"I'd love to be in Hawaii right now," someone here will say on a January day when its 11 degrees outside and snow is blowing up their nostrils.

But as we all know, the weather isn't perfect in Hawaii, either. Although it is more perfect than it is here.

Golfers attempting to tee off on the 2013 PGA season are experiencing Hawaii's brief and rare – I guess; I've never been to the islands – imperfections.

From the Associated Press:

APALUA, Hawaii -- On the third attempt at starting the PGA Tour season, Matt Kuchar stepped to the 10th tee at Kapalua and could barely hear his name through the wind. When he finally steadied himself, a gust blew his golf ball off the tee. And then it happened again.

…

Just more than one hour after the Hyundai Tournament of Champions finally got under way, it was scrapped again with all the scores erased.

Most golf tournaments end on Sunday. This one couldn't even get started Sunday.

The wind came roaring down the Plantation Course at Kapalua again, and it left officials no choice but to stop play and try to start again. With more manageable wind in the forecast, the plan was to play 36 holes Monday and finish with 18 holes Tuesday.

…

Ian Poulter posed over his 4-iron shot to the 13th green and was so stunned to see it come up short that he looked at his small gallery for the longest time, repeating loud enough for them to hear that he was only 138 yards from the front of the green. Off to his right, Charlie Beljan had a search party stomping through high grass to the right of the 10th fairway looking for both his tee shots. He had a 15-foot putt for triple bogey when play was stopped.

Moments later, a call came over the radio for a ruling on the 12th green. Scott Stallings was trying to tap in a 2-foot putt when a gust blew his ball 8 feet away.

Tiger Confident Through the Wind

In case you didn’t hear, let me be the first to tell you Tiger Woods won The Chevron World Challenge Sunday, his first tournament victory in more than two years.

This has been big news today for those sportscasters who still gush over Tiger.

I think I heard one sports radio host today say Tiger, in the process of winning a golf tournament, can make TV viewers switch off the NFL and to the links.

Come on, fellas!

As sick as I sometimes get over the Tiger love fests that often occur in sports media, I couldn’t help be a little fascinated – maybe “fascinated” is too strong a word here, but I’ll go with it – with one Woods weather-related item from last week when the golfer explained to ESPN Radio’s Colin Cowherd that playing in the wind at the Australia Open, where he finished third, helped him gain confidence his game was on par with his pre-Thanksgiving 2009 level of play.
“I am fully healthy and the way I played in Australia was very exciting for me because when the wind blows like that and it’s howling consistently like when it did in Sydney and down in Melbourne and I ended up playing nine rounds, nine competitive rounds during that stretch, Woods told Cowherd.

“I felt like I had control of the golf ball for all those days and as a player you get exposed from the wind if you have any kind of weakness and I didn’t have any glaring weakness and as the more I played I got better. That was the fun part that when the wind blew my swing tightened up and actually got better.”

Woods’ shot, but not his confidence, did suffer a bit from the gusty winds Saturday at the Thousands Oaks, Calif., course, where the 35-year-old golfer entered the third round with a three-shot lead, but fell to second place behind Zach Johnson.

"Most of the time today it wasn't me,” Woods said following the third round. “I hit a lot of good shots. The wind was all over the place. It was tough out there.''

Weather bureaus reported the winds to be at 30 to 40 miles per hour.

According to Sunday’s reports, winds slowed during the final round, and Woods shot a three-under-par 69 to finish 10 under and a shot ahead of that pesky Johnson.

Photo: Reuters

The Open in Pictures

Yahoo! Sports has a great photo gallery of the rain-drenched U.S. Open. I don't think I've ever written more about golf and rain than I have today. The photo here is from the Associated Press.

Done for the Day

Play at the U.S. Open has been suspended for the day. They'll try again Friday morning.

No word yet on a postponement of the Yankees/Nationals game. It's still in a rain delay.

UPDATE: The target -- this has become a moving target -- for the first pitch at Yankee Stadium is now 4:05 p.m.

Weather Update

...from usopen.com:

"Mike Davis just informed us that it will be at least until 2 p.m. before players possibly could get out to the practice range to warm up for a resumption of play today. Heavy rain is still expected over the next 45 minutes, but the good news is there's a window this afternoon when golf should be able to resume. The hope is that the morning wave of 78 competitors can complete round one today, with the afternoon wave, which includes Phil Mickelson, completing the first round on Friday.

Once the rain does stop, Jim Hyler, the chairman of the Championship Committee, said it would take 30 minutes or so to get the course back into playing condition."

Running updates can be found here.

Rain Delay at Black

Play currently is suspended at the U.S. Open because of heavy rain. While you’re waiting, here is an insightful article about how U.S. Open officials are combating the wet conditions. By the way, the photo is from the Associated Press.

Striking Photo

I’m about two weeks late with posting this AP photo of lightning striking at the Southern California Golf Association golf course in Temecula, Calif. on June 3. It’s a great pic, so you’ll give me a break on its tardiness to the blog, right? Enjoy!

By the way, you can keep up with U.S. Open weather conditions at weather.com

Rain Could Halt U.S. Open

The potential of significant rainfall on Thursday and Friday has USGA officials concerned about possible delays at the beginning and throughout the U.S. Open, which begins Thursday at Black Course at Bethpage State Park in Farmingdale, N.Y. So, are USGA officials open to extending play into the early part of next week should play be held up by rain? Jim Hyler, a USGA vice president and chair of the championship committee told the New York Times: “If we can’t play it, if it’s not fair to be playing the ball as it lies, we’ll suspend play. We’ll stay here until we get a champion.” Rainfall from last week has the course already soggy, the Times story said.
How much rain will it take to garner a play suspension? “If we get an inch of rain Thursday, I’m fairly sure we’ll get a suspension,” Currier said. “Especially if it’s an inch of rain in a couple hours. If it’s spread over the whole day, we’ll be O.K. But if it comes quickly, the bunkers will fill up fast. It seems like we haven’t seen the sun in a month. I’m gearing myself for four days of rain.”
Read more of the New York Times story>>