Players Championship : Pohl Leader When Rain Suspends Play

Mark McCumber threw a piece of ice at Dan Pohl after the third round of the Players Championship was called off before it was completed Saturday because of thunderstorms.

“Thanks, Mark, I need a piece of ice,” Pohl said.

McCumber stopped and turned around.

“That was hail,” he said.

Maybe not, but that certainly was lightning, thunder and some very hard rain that struck the Players tournament, an event that has followed quite a weather progression.

Thursday was calm. Friday was windy. Saturday was rainy. What’s next? A forest fire in the swamplands?

Pohl took the lead at 10-under par and picked up four strokes in the five holes he played between rain delays that totaled 2 hours 50 minutes, before play was finally suspended at 5 p.m.

McCumber and Morris Hatalsky are at 9-under par, and Mike Reid and David Frost are at 6-under par, although none of the leaders got to the sixth hole.

Payne Stewart, the second-round leader, double-bogeyed No. 2 to fall back to 7-under par.

Only 30 of 72 golfers finished their rounds Saturday, but because the forecast is for clearing skies by this morning, PGA officials are intent on finishing the tournament on schedule.

This means Pohl must play 31 holes today.

“Obviously, it’s going to be a long day,” he said.

The third round will restart at 7:15 a.m. (EST) today, and the fourth round is scheduled to begin at 11:15 in threesomes from the first and 10th tees.

Stewart, Dr. Gil Morgan and Lanny Wadkins are three strokes back at 7 under par. Wadkins, who shot a 32 on the front nine Saturday, birdied his fifth hole of the day on No. 12 before the rain got him.

“I would have liked to have kept going as well as I was playing,” Wadkins said. “You hate to be interrupted. For a guy who was as far behind as I was, I wasn’t real excited to see the rain.”

Pohl said he had no quarrel with the round being stopped Saturday.

“No sense in somebody getting killed out there,” he said. “I saw one lightning bolt that probably could have moved a couple of cars in the parking lot. In fact, the Rolls Royce that (Greg) Norman used to own . . . I think it’s a Toyota now.”