Reid Stays in Eye of the Storm : Opens 3-Shot Lead Before Heavy Rain Halts Play in PGA

The atmosphere at the PGA Championship Saturday was positively electric. And that was the problem.

Repeated flashes of lightning, claps of thunder and torrents of rain forced tournament officials to postpone the remainder of the third round with the final group, including leader Mike Reid, having completed only nine holes.

Players will resume their third rounds at Kemper Lakes Golf Club early this morning where they were before they left the course. Barring more bad weather, the players will finish this 72-hole tournament by nightfall.

Reid birdied the first, fifth and seventh holes before bunkering his four-wood second shot at the ninth to finish with a bogey and a 34. His 45-hole total of 13 under par leads Craig Stadler by three strokes, Chris Perry by four and Leonard Thompson, Isao Aoki, Ian Woosnam and Dave Rummells by five.

Aoki was one of 31 golfers to finish 18 holes before the storm. He made eight birdies and one bogey and needed only 22 putts for his 65. Perhaps the most impressive aspect of his round was the consecutive sand saves he managed on the eighth, ninth and 10th holes.

But the real story was the lightning.

More than a few players, including U.S. Open champion Curtis Strange, thought officials should have suspended play sooner than they did.

Strange, seven shots behind Reid, waited on the 10th tee for more than 10 minutes, trying to persuade Pat Rielly, president of the PGA of America, to suspend play.

Rain has accompanied the PGA Tour at 19 of 35 events this year. “It’s happened so often,” Reid said, “I’m almost numb to it.”

Lightning and rain resulted in a one-hour 48-minute suspension of play Friday. Kemper Lakes, located 46 miles northwest of downtown Chicago, is only one of several Chicago-area courses plagued by lightning in the last week.

Last Wednesday, four golfers, huddling under an umbrella at a golf course in west suburban Darien, were struck by lightning. One of them, 31-year-old Michael Pondel, died Friday of injuries suffered in the incident.

Three more golfers were struck by lightning at a golf course in nearby Wheaton the day Pondel died. Local hospital officials upgraded the conditions of two of them from critical to fair Saturday. The third was upgraded from critical to serious.

“Considering what’s happened in the area the last few days, you can’t blame him (Strange),” said Paul Orseck, the director of communications for the PGA.

At the height of the storm Saturday, local power lines went down, shutting off electricity at most of the Kemper Lakes facilities, including the clubhouse. The outage lasted 90 minutes, during which time most of the players stayed in a candle-illuminated locker room.

Before the suspension of play, Australian Greg Norman, who survived the cut by one shot, began his customary weekend charge. Norman was seven under on his round until he double-bogeyed the 16th hole to finish with a 67. He was at four under par after three rounds.

Last month in Scotland, Norman birdied the first six holes of the final round at the British Open and finished with a 64. But he lost in a four-hole playoff to Mark Calcavecchia.

“Everywhere I’ve played I seem to get off to a slow start and play well on the weekend,” Norman said. “I have no reason for it. Maybe I don’t fire myself up in the early rounds.”

Norman’s double bogey resulted from a drive into a bunker, followed by a five-iron hooked into trees. His pitch ran through the green, then he chipped back and two-putted for a six. The 16th, at 469 yards, has played tougher than any hole on the course this week. Seve Ballesteros, the 1988 British Open champion, was seven under through 52 holes and five under on the day. Others at seven-under were Scott Hoch (through 46 holes) and Mike Sullivan (through 51).

Hoch is still living down the 3 1/2-foot putt he missed on the first playoff hole at the Masters. He lost to Nick Faldo on the next hole.

But few people remember that Reid, who has never won a major, was leading that tournament with six holes to play.

Aoki, for one, likes Reid’s chances. “He hits the ball straight, straight, straight,” Aoki said.

PGA Notes

Arnold Palmer, who shot a 68 Thursday, had a 40 on the front nine Saturday and was five over for the tournament through 51 holes. Jack Nicklaus was five under for the tournament through 46 holes. Tom Watson was five under through 45 holes.

Going into the tournament, 10 golfers still had a chance to qualify on points for an automatic berth to the 12-man U.S. Ryder Cup team. The team hopes to end a two-match Ryder Cup losing streak next month against the European team in England. Four of the players who still had a chance--Joey Sindelar, Lanny Wadkins, Mark O’Meara and Ken Green--missed the cut of 145. Sindelar and Wadkins both shot 148, O’Meara 147. Green simply didn’t show up Saturday morning to complete his second round. He had double-bogeyed the 16th hole Friday night to go seven over for the tournament when play was halted because of darkness. He was disqualified. “The reason he didn’t show up was obvious, he wasn’t going to make the cut,” said tournament director Scott Cain. “We have no problem with that.” Green is not subject to a fine. Other players still in contention for the four, point-related automatic berths are: Payne Stewart, Mark McCumber, Steve Pate, Bruce Lietzke, Ben Crenshaw and Scott Hoch. The winner of the tournament gains an automatic Ryder Cup berth. And if that winner has already qualified on points, team captain Raymond Floyd will have two (instead of one) wild-card selections to fill out the roster. Six players--Mark Calcavecchia, Curtis Strange, Chip Beck, Tom Kite, Paul Azinger and Fred Couples--have already clinched spots on the team. Both Couples (146) and Azinger (153) missed the 36-hole cut.

Other prominent players missing the cut included: Hal Sutton (146), Fuzzy Zoeller (147), Lee Trevino (149) and Bob Tway (149). Tway, Trevino and Sutton all won this tournament in the ‘80s. . . . The cut wasn’t determined until early Saturday morning when the 24 players, stopped by darkness Friday, finally finished their second rounds.