Hurricane Earl likely to wreak havoc with golf at Deutsche Bank Championship

NORTON, Mass., Sept. 1 -- With Hurricane Earl barreling toward the East Coast, the PGA Tour may have to rearrange the opening round of this weekend’s Deutsche Bank Championship at TPC Boston. Downgraded from a Category 4 to a Category 3 storm on Wednesday, Earl was still packing sustained winds of some 125 m.p.h. as it made its way toward the North Carolina coastline.

Like being hit with a 3-iron. “The storm has eased up, which means nothing,” Peter Judge, spokesperson with the Massachusetts Emergency Management Agency, told Golf Examiner. “That’s like getting hit with a 3-iron instead of a driver.”

The storm, on track to hit 50 to 100 miles southeast of Nantucket, could have no impact on the golf tourney, or it could knock out power and down trees.

“Keep your fingers crossed,” Judge observed. “You could be drenched and blown away, or you could have sunshine. It’s really tough to tell.”

Blowing in Thursday night? While the worst-case scenario of 130-m.p.h. winds and five to seven inches of rain may not befall TPC Boston, the likelihood was that the course would experience at least the 60-m.p.h. winds typical of a tropical storm, possibly starting as early as Thursday night, said Judge.

Moving north. Even last weekend, emergency officials were warning boaters and swimmers as far north as Maine that the hurricane could cause dangerous riptides. As of early Wednesday morning, Earl was more than 700 miles south-southeast of Cape Hatteras. It was expected to slam the North Carolina coast by late Thursday or early Friday and then advance quickly north, according to the National Weather Service in nearby Taunton, Mass.

Despite that possibility, the PGA Tour’s onsite meteorologist Stewart Williams expected Friday morning to start with partly cloudy skies and light winds and the afternoon to bring deteriorating conditions, with rain and winds gusting to up to 25 m.p.h.

“The worst of the weather will be Friday evening as Earl passes off Cape Cod and moves northeast,” Williams said from weather headquarters at TPC Boston. “There’s a chance of some heavy rainfall, especially late afternoon and early evening.”

Whatever happens, the tour officials will not be caught unaware. “Hurricane Earl will have some impact,” Williams said. “The exact track will make a huge difference as to whether we get really strong winds or lesser winds and rains.”

Friday golf. Williams was optimistic the tourney would start on time, but could not ensure that golfers would complete their first rounds on time.

“We’ll definitely play golf in the morning on Friday,” Williams said. “We’ll see how far we can get Friday afternoon before we can’t play.”

Serious talks. Williams and tour officials planned to have “serious discussions” Wednesday about what to do in a worst-case scenario, although Judge suggested it was too early to start canceling Labor Day weekend activities like the Deutsche Bank Championship.

“Suddenly [the storm track] becomes 100 to 200 miles off and folks on the outer Cape get hit a little bit, but in southeast Massachusetts, it’s a cloudy day,” offered Judge.

With the best-case scenario not likely, however, Williams expected the storm to affect play.

Close watch. “It could be far enough away and we don’t get anything and it’s still possible that could happen,” he said. “But I still think we’ll feel some effects. We’ll keep a close watch over the next 48 hours.”

Should Earl make its presence known, it won’t be the first such weather emergency Williams has handled for the tour. A Michelob Championship event in Williamsburg, Va., in the 1990s required maintenance crews to strip tents down to their metal frames and batten down any loose objects. The storm hit at night and blew out fast enough for workers to clean up debris strewn across the course so that tourney could start on time the next morning.

A busy 48 hours. But that was then, and this is now. Williams planned to meet with tourney director Eric Baldwin as well as operations staff and tour officials to determine what precautions to take.

“There’s a lot that’s going to happen here in the next 48 hours,” Williams said.

For sure, there will be golf at TPC Boston this weekend. Read how the Deutsche Bank Championship is the second stage of golf’s version of “playoffs.”