Rain postpones final round of Wyndham Championship until Monday

It’s been four years since Sergio Garcia’s last PGA Tour victory. He’ll have to wait one more day before he can try to finish this one off.

And a downpour at the Wyndham Championship in Greensboro, N.C., meant another day of uncertainty for others on the playoff bubble.

Garcia had the lead at 15 under par through four holes Sunday when the final round in the last event before the FedEx Cup playoffs was suspended for the day because of heavy rain.

Tim Clark, Jason Dufner and Bud Cauley were 14 under through varying stages of their rounds, and 38 players — half the field — were still on the course when play was stopped.

After waiting roughly 2 hours 20 minutes, officials decided to bring them back to Sedgefield Country Club at 9 a.m. EDT Monday to crown a champion and figure out who qualifies for the playoffs. It will be the first Monday finish in Greensboro since 1983.

Tour officials said more than two inches of rain had fallen on the course since Saturday night and Mark Russell, the tour’s vice president of rules and competition, said the 15th hole became “unplayable.”

The stoppage came at 3:10 p.m. when the showers picked up, and it was expected to be only a brief delay, with the players initially staying on the course. Officials reversed that decision and brought them in a short while later.

Then, when the initially announced restart time of 5 p.m. was pushed back twice — first to 5:30 p.m., then 6 p.m. — it made it virtually impossible for the final pairing to finish 14 holes in the roughly two hours of remaining daylight and guaranteed a Monday finish.

The decision to suspend play was announced at 5:28 p.m.

“It started raining and just wouldn’t stop. The golf course got to the point where it was saturated,” Russell said. “We got to a point where we knew we couldn’t finish … so we made a decision that we would let it drain tonight, come back in the morning and be in position to resume play at 9 o’clock.”

U.S. Amateur

Steve Fox made an 18-foot birdie putt on the 37th hole, completing a remarkable underdog run to win the U.S. Amateur at Cherry Hills Village, Colo.

The 21-year-old Fox, from Hendersonville, Tenn., was 2-down with two holes to play against Michael Weaver of Fresno before rallying with consecutive birdies to force the extra hole.

Fox, a senior at Tennessee Chattanooga, made an 11-foot putt to win the 35th hole.

Still with a 1-up advantage, Weaver, a 21-year-old redshirt junior at California, needed to make a five-foot putt on the 36th hole at the 18th green to secure the win, but it lipped out, extending the championship round to a 37th hole.

A shaken Weaver landed his next tee shot in the rough, putting himself in a tough spot and needing two more shots to put the ball on the green. Fox then hit a slow roller, breaking at the end from left to right, for the winning putt.

Fox, like Weaver, survived a 17-for-14 playoff to qualify for the 64-player match play field. Fox entered match play as the No. 63-seeded player.

Champions Tour

Willie Wood won the Dick’s Sporting Goods Open in Endicott, N.Y., for his first Champions Tour title, beating Michael Allen with a par on the first hole of a playoff.

Wood made a long birdie putt on the final hole of regulation to match Allen, a two-time winner this year, at 13-under-par 203 on the En-Joie Golf Course. Wood closed with a 68, and Allen shot 66.

In the playoff on the par-four 18th hole, Allen’s drive went way left, essentially ending his chances.

Woods earned $270,000 for the victory, his first since he won the 1996 Deposit Guaranty Golf Classic for his lone PGA Tour title.

Joey Sindelar, Kenny Perry, Tom Lehman and Brad Faxon finished a stroke back.

LPGA

Japan’s Mika Miyazato won the Safeway Classic for her first victory on the LPGA Tour, finishing with a two-under 70 to beat Brittany Lincicome and Inbee Park by two strokes.

The 22-year-old Miyazato finished at 13-under 203 in her wire-to-wire victory on Pumpkin Ridge’s Ghost Creek Course in North Plains, Ore. She shared the first-round lead and had a two-shot advantage after the second.

Lincicome shot 67, and Park had a 70.

The 22-year-old Miyazato, in her fourth season on the LPGA Tour, is the sixth first-time winner this year. She broke through after a pair second-place ties in June.

South Korea’s Haeji Kang had a 66 — the best round of the day, to tie for fourth at 10 under with Cristie Kerr (70) and So Yeon Ryu (71). Sydnee Michaels, the first-round co-leader, was four strokes back after a 70.

Michelle Wie had her first top-10 finish of the season, shooting a 69 to finish eighth at eight under.

Top-ranked Yani Tseng faded with a 73 to finish at six under. Paula Creamer was three under after a 76.