A win is a win, even if it is a wind-blown one, Conrad Ray figures.
“I’ll take it,” said Ray, the head men’s golf coach at Stanford, after his team took the title of the Prestige tournament at PGA West in La Quinta when the third round was cancelled by strong winds.
With trees being knocked down by the powerful gusts and play having already been suspended for an hour earlier in the day, a second suspension to strong winds around 10:30 a.m. eventually led to a cancellation of the entire third round. That meant the results reverted back to the 36-hole lead after Tuesday’s wind-blown round. Stanford was leading after two rounds at 5-under as a team, four shots ahead of Texas Tech.
The early win on the spring schedule is important for Stanford, ranked 22nd in the Scoreboard rankings.
“I feel like our team has been trending. We had a good outing in Hawaii last week against some pretty good teams. That was a learning experience for our guys,” Ray said.
The second delay meant none of the morning players were able to get much beyond nine holes on the day.
“Our lead guy was on the seventh hole, so we got a fair share of golf in, but it just got to be nasty at the end with dust and the like,” Ray said.
“It was windy. It was a struggle out there today,” said Aiden Krafft of the University of Oregon, declared the individual winner of the event with a 36-hole score of 5-under 137 on the par-71 Norman Course. “Unfortunately we didn’t get to finish today.”
Krafft was another player who managed just seven holes in the wind Wednesday.
“We had this wind pretty much last night (Tuesday), too,” Krafft said. “It wasn’t as bad, but it was super windy. Coming down that home stretch, I had a really pivotal moment and 16 (where he saved a par-5) and also parring the 18th hole was pretty clutch. I didn’t know it would lead me to a win today. But I put myself into a good position to win today.”
Wednesday’s third round began on time with the top 12 of the 24 teams teeing off at 6:45 a.m., but by 8:06 a.m play was suspended by the strong winds. While play was only stopped for an hour, it was enough for tournament officials to decide the 12 teams originally scheduled to tee off at 11 a.m. would not play at all for fear the winds would pick up again.
“In conditions like this where we have wind, it’s really balls that won’t stay at rest, particularly on the putting green,” said Jim Moriarty, a USGA volunteer and the head rules official for the Prestige. “We don’t usually have problems with balls hitting the fairway, but once you get onto those greens, as prepared as they are, even though we dialed down the speed today, when the balls won’t stay at rest, that’s usually what causes you to make a suspension.”
At about 10:30 a.m., play was again suspended, with several large gusts of winds hitting the course, bringing dusts clouds and uprooting trees on the second and 18th holes After about half an hour, with several large gusts still hitting the course and more predicted for the afternoon, the decision was made to cancel play.
For Ray and the Cardinal, and for the individuals in the event, the win will still count as an official tournament.
“The good news is it is recognized by all the big rankings,” Ray said. “Thirty-six holes is kind of what you need. So PGA Tour U and WAGR and Scoreboard rankings, I think it all works the same at the end of the day.”
This article originally appeared on Palm Springs Desert Sun: Stanford gets wind-swept victory at Prestige as final round gets cancelled
Reporting by Larry Bohannan, Palm Springs Desert Sun / Palm Springs Desert Sun
USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect
