A Drop in Last Year's Bucket

By Thomas Bonk

Feb. 14, 2006 12 AM PT

Times Staff Writer

Here is how Adam Scott described last year’s Nissan Open: “Quite a frustrating week.”

And he was the winner. Or sort of.

Actually, there was no winner. There wasn’t really a tournament, at least an official one, although PGA Tour rules call for the players to get paid anyway.

That was the only payoff of the week. From Thursday until the tournament was finally washed down the storm drain Monday, so much rain fell that only 36 holes were played, thus making the 79th Nissan Open at Riviera Country Club one of the most unsatisfying, unfulfilled PGA Tour events in its history.

It was unfinished business.

Riviera also was something else, Scott said.

“Cold and wet.”

Discomfort has its payoff, though. Scott made $864,000 and he held up the winner’s trophy for pictures last February at Riviera, but his victory was deemed unofficial by the PGA Tour. That meant he did not earn a position in the winners-only Mercedes Championship in January and neither did he get a two-year exemption that’s extended to winners of tour events.

If it’s any consolation to Scott, he was the first 36-hole “winner” of a PGA event since Michael Bradley won the 1996 Buick Challenge. Bradley gets the edge, though, because he’s listed in the record books as the tournament champion.

Since the PGA Tour started keeping track of such watered-down happenings in 1990, only three other times has a tournament been limited to 36 holes -- the 1994 Byron Nelson Classic, the 1994 Deposit Guaranty Classic and the 1996 Buick Challenge. All three were considered official events with official winners.

But in 1998, the tour changed its regulations so that in any 36-hole tournament the players would be paid and the money counted as official, but the tournament itself would not be considered official.

The 2005 Nissan Open was just unlucky enough to become the first tournament to fall victim to the rules.

Since its inception in 1926 as the Los Angeles Open, never had the tournament been anything but official, although it was shortened to 54 holes once before, in 1993, when Tom Kite won ... officially.

What happened last year at Riviera would have been perfect programming for the Weather Channel.

Under party cloudy skies Thursday, play was suspended because of darkness at 5:54 p.m. with four players still on the course. Brian Davis wound up with a one-shot lead with a 65. As it turned out, Thursday was the most normal day of the tournament.

Steady rain forced a four-hour delay Friday. The end of the first round and the start of the second round were pushed back to 11 a.m. Of course, the second round didn’t finish Friday. Play was suspended at 5:43 p.m. because of darkness with 72 players on the course.

There was no golf Saturday. Heavy overnight rains and thunderstorms during the morning forced Mark Russell, the PGA Tour’s tournament director, to call off the day’s play at 9:57 a.m.

On Sunday, morning rain caused a two-hour delay, so the second round resumed at 9:30 a.m. and eventually ended at 2:17 p.m.

It might have been the longest round in history, from start to finish -- two days, three hours and 17 minutes in all. Scott and Chad Campbell were tied at nine-under 133, thanks to Scott’s 20-foot birdie putt on his last hole.

As for Campbell, he finished his second round Friday and didn’t hit a shot Saturday or Sunday because of the rain.

The players showed up Monday, hoping to complete the third round, which would have made the tournament official. The chance of playing Tuesday was also in the mix, but the Match Play Championship was to begin at La Costa on Wednesday.

Heavy morning rain forced Russell to cancel play and call for a playoff between Scott and Campbell.

They went to the tee at the 451-yard 18th. Scott hooked his drive into the left rough and Campbell hit the ball down the middle of the fairway, even though it was his first shot in competition since Friday.

Scott was still short of the green after his second shot, a three-wood from 218 yards. Campbell, five yards closer than Scott, hit a five-wood to the right and into a puddle.

He took a drop into a saturated spot and chipped five feet past the hole.

Scott’s 80-foot chip had stopped four feet from the hole, which was at the back left of the wet green.

Campbell lipped out his par putt, Scott made his and it was over.

The entire procedure took about 10 minutes.

The tournament had lasted a lot longer than that, from Thursday morning to Monday morning and days of rain in between. Campbell’s consolation prize was $518,400.

John Gill, director of sports marketing for Nissan, was less than pleased about having to pay the prize money in the $4.8-million tournament without actually having an official tournament and playing only 36 holes instead of 72.

“From a sponsor’s perspective, it’s one thing to pay a full purse after only 36 holes and it’s another when you also have to see what didn’t happen and who really didn’t win,” he said.

“As a sponsor, you expect to pay full price for a completed tournament. I’m not happy about what happened. I’m sure a lot of people would like to work 50% of the time and get paid, but apparently the only place that happens is the PGA Tour.”

However, Henry Hughes, a PGA Tour’s senior vice president and chief of operations, said Nissan was not on the hook for the entire $4.8-million purse.

If a PGA Tour event that isn’t scheduled opposite another tournament that week winds up limited to 36 holes, then 62% of the event’s prize money comes from the PGA Tour through its television rights package, Hughes said.

The remaining 38% is the responsibility of the host organization, in this case the Los Angeles Junior Chamber of Commerce, which in turn packages the sum into its title sponsor program with Nissan.

In effect, Nissan’s share would have been $2.9 million or less, depending on its contract with the junior chamber.

But if the sponsor was upset, at least the players were paid ... even if they were also confused.

Said Campbell: “It was pretty weird.”

Said Scott: “An odd week, you know.”

Like everyone else who spent the week dodging the raindrops none too successfully last year, Scott has had enough time to dry out, but he hasn’t forgotten how odd a week it really was.

“It was a lot of sitting around the locker room and really not knowing what is going on, which is quite frustrating, especially at a nice golf course like Riviera where you just want to get out and play,” he said.

“We were all just hanging around.”

Unofficially, of course.

(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX)

The long and short of it

The 2005 Nissan Open is one of four PGA Tour events shortened to 36 holes because of weather since the tour began keeping track in 1990. However, it is the only one that is unofficial.

YEAR: 1994

TOURNAMENT: GTE Byron Nelson Golf Classic

WINNER: Neal Lancaster

SCORE: 132 (5-way playoff)

YEAR: 1994

TOURNAMENT: Deposit Guaranty Golf Classic

WINNER: Brian Henninger

SCORE: 135 (playoff with Mike Sullivan)

YEAR: 1996

TOURNAMENT: Buick Challenge

WINNER: Michael Bradley

SCORE: 134 (4-way playoff)