A Day to Grip It and Drip It

The hardest part about playing golf in the rain isn’t dealing with the cold when the water drips down the back of your neck and inside your shirt.

The hardest part about playing golf in the rain isn’t putting on layer upon layer of foul-weather gear, then peeling them off, then climbing into them again, as if trying on clothes at a department store.

The hardest part about playing golf in the rain isn’t keeping the grips dry enough so your clubs don’t fly out of your hands like a Frisbee when you swing.

Actually, the hardest part about playing golf in the rain is knowing how many towels you need to bring. According to Hal Sutton, there’s no precise number, but he says the general idea is to have more than one, fewer than a dozen.

On a wet Friday at Riviera Country Club, where the second round began after a four-hour rain delay, it rained hard enough and long enough that they probably could have thrown in the towel on the day and nobody would have been too upset, with the likely exception of Chad Campbell.

Because the second round was not completed, Campbell is the leader in the clubhouse, which so far in this tournament is the perfect place to be, leading or otherwise.

To prepare themselves to do battle with Riviera in the rain, the players had some work to do before they headed outside.

There was one mission, besides scoring low. It was not about fashion, it was about trying not to become water soluble while playing a round of golf. So the players went about their business swaddled in the proper attire for the day.

During a brief dry period, Carl Pettersson and David Podas wore baggy sweatshirts. Todd Fischer chose a simple long-sleeved, waterproof shirt.

Joe Durant wore a sleeveless vest and a long-sleeved shirt. Bob Estes had a long-sleeved turtleneck under a sweater vest.

Robert Allenby was in a sleeveless sweater and a short-sleeved shirt. Of course, some have a faint recollection that Allenby was in a pair of water skis when he won here on the first hole of a six-man playoff conducted in an absolute downpour on the final day in 2001.

When it wasn’t raining Friday, which wasn’t often, the rain gear came off and most of the players stopped looking like someone doing an advertisement for canned tuna.

Campbell, Luke Donald and Omar Uresti were in short sleeves. Duffy Waldorf wore a wind shirt with three-quarter sleeves, plus his usual cap adorned with a pattern of flowers that seemed to be enjoying the rain.

Everybody wore shiny rain pants designed to repel water, although they weren’t nearly so effective with mud.

But at least they were playing, which is a great thing about golf and golfers. Wind, rain and cold weather don’t stop them. If it’s raining, they’re going to play. The only factors that stop them are when there are thunderstorms in the area and when it rains so much that the course resembles a swimming pool.

No one disagrees that the elements of nature are a huge part of golf, and how you deal with them can sometimes determine a champion.

Among professional athletes, golfers score highly in this category. Usually, they play in the rain, and that’s something you can’t say about baseball players, unless there’s a retractable roof to roll over the playing field so everybody stays nice and dry.

Trying not to get wet stopped being an impossible task for professional golfers with the invention of professional caddies. These guys don’t just read putts and carry heavy bags. They also hold umbrellas over players’ heads until the last second, until the player takes his shot and then ducks under the umbrella again.

Besides keeping the player dry, the caddie keeps the equipment dry, the snacks dry and the towels dry, as many as possible. That’s the plan, anyway.

For spectators, the hardest part about watching golf in the rain is also trying to keep dry. There were enough fans carrying umbrellas at Riviera for a Mary Poppins convention.

The sales of umbrellas kept the pro shop hopping, and by the time play was suspended for the day, 75 of the 62-inch, $22 umbrellas had found their way into somebody’s hands.

All they needed to do after that was find a caddie to hold it for them.