The Open: Heavy winds continue to disrupt Saturday play

The R&A announces that the final round of The Open will be played on Monday because of the rain and high-wind delays at St Andrews.

It will be only the second Monday finish in Open history.

Several players voiced their displeasure with the decision, including Canadian David Hearn, who is four-over par after bogeying the 10th hole, took to Twitter.

On Friday play was suspended for three-hours as heavy rain flooded the St Andrews Old Course, and it needed the exceptional drainage facilities at the Scottish course to be at their best to ensure that play resumed later in the day.

“What had happened, and the wind readings show it, is that the wind speeds after 7am increased by about six miles an hour over what we had been experiencing prior to the start of play, and that was enough to tip it over the edge”.

It is hoped that the second round can be completed later in the afternoon when the winds ease up, with the third round following on Sunday and the final round on Monday.

“An announcement regarding Saturday and Monday tickets will be made shortly”.

Bubba Watson’s caddie Ted Scott tweeted: “Every R & A official in player dining is getting yelled at”.

As I warned on Wednesday, this Open will be as much about the weather as it is about the technical skill and the mental endurance of the players. And then it started, and Koepka’s ball wouldn’t stay put.

“There’s obviously been quite a bit of it since it happened – the way that I won, obviously you can see how a lot of people kind of see it”, he said.

However, organisers insist they took possible steps to assess the conditions and it was only after play started conditions deteriorated.

“The only thing they were able to go off of was what the officials themselves saw when they were out there before we even got out to the golf course. This could not be foreseen at the time that play was restarted and made a material difference to the playability of the golf course”.

But, with gusts up to 45mph, there was an obvious immediate problem, particularly on exposed parts of the course like the 11th green. On the 14th Spieth watched Dustin Johnson surrender the lead when his ball blew back off the green as he went to mark it. The resulting bogey took him back into a tie on nine under with England’s Danny Willett, who was one of the lucky ones to finish on Friday.

Nearly as good, he got some thanks for being the player who called their bluff.

Johnson was at 10-under par and played his third shot from just short of the green on the par-5 14th.

Thursday’s first-round leader Dustin Johnson began Friday’s play at 5:48 p.m. local time (12:48 p.m. ET) alongside Jordan Spieth, who is bidding to claim a third consecutive major victory.

He has had two other 65s: round 2 of the 2014 Open Championship and round 3 of the 2013 PGA Championship.