“You’ve seen Orson’s other wine commercial, right?” Our old pal Tom Lutz, there, practically begging me to post this fine clip of a master at work. Action is imminent, I feel it necessary to add.
The early signs suggest low scores will come at a premium this afternoon. Of the early starters, many more players are over par for their rounds than under it. Yu Liu, Choi Hye-jin, Hsu Wei-ling and Caroline Masson are all three over already today, and none of them have played more than five holes. Amy Olson is four over through 4. Today could prove a battle. Enough to drive anyone to drink.
Umbrellas are up again on the shores of Lake Geneva. Nothing too dramatic, and the rain’s expected to ease off as the afternoon progresses. Expect the players to attack a few of the pins, the greens being so soft and receptive. On the other hand, the fairways are still a bit sodden, so the course will be playing a little longer. Pick-and-place rules are in effect. Nobody from the pack is making an early run, the sole exception being Mirim Lee, with back-to-back birdies at 2 and 3. She’s -6. The leaders will be out soon enough, and then we’ll really get going.
Guardian fake news dept. Turns out the last entry shouldn’t be time-stamped 11.33am, but misinformation o’clock. It’s the coverage that won’t be kicking in for an hour or so. In fact, the early groups have taken to the course already, with the sky looking considerably brighter. Nothing of note to report yet, other than Jing Yan’s entertaining start to the round: birdie, triple bogey, birdie. She’s level par for the tournament. Significant news when we have it. You’ve still got time to nip out for the Observer and 20 Bensons, if we’re being honest.
The course has taken a real hammering, and the start has been further delayed. The greenkeeping staff are doing their best to drain the waterlogged tees, fairways and greens, but it’s a big ask. Still, here’s some good news: conditions are improving, and they hope to get proceedings underway in the next 60 to 90 minutes. When they snap into action, so shall we.
Evian: water. Photograph: Sébastien Nogier/EPA
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Preamble
When the LPGA awarded the Evian Championship major status back in 2013, the tournament was moved from July to September. Cue rain and wind affecting proceedings, to such an extent that organisers shifted it back this year to July. Well, guess what. Yep. No prizes.
Le Tour hasn’t been the only big sporting event in France to be seriously affected by the weather this week. The blistering heat of the first two days at the Evian Resort Golf Club in Évian-les-Bains was fine: only Lexi Thompson got hot under the collar, missing the cut then speaking of her annoyance at watching good drives taking hard bounces off cooked fairways and into trouble. But since then, storms have been an issue, with the field sent out yesterday in threesomes off split tees at seven in the morning to avoid a tempest.
That worked out well, with the poor weather only arriving as the final groups finished their rounds. But there’s been more meteorological bother, with heavy overnight rain flooding fairways and tee boxes. So today the players will again take to the Evian Resort course in threesomes, going off two tees, but this time the play’s been pushed back a couple of hours. The leading pack will be teeing off between 12pm and 1pm BST. But while Le Tour is all over bar the shouting, as the peloton ceremonially trundles into Paris, the 25th edition of the Evian is still very much up in the air, as the 54-hole leaderboard shows:
-15: Kim Hyo-joo
-14: Park Sung-hyun
-11: Ko Jin-young, Inbee Park
-10: Shanshan Feng, Lee Mi-hyang
-9: Caroline Hedwall
-8: Ariya Jutanugarn, Megan Khang, Chella Choi
Plenty of major-winning experience there. The leader Kim Hyo-joo won the 2014 edition of this tournament, shooting 61 along the way. Park Sung-hyun is the world number one, winner of the 2017 US Open and the 2018 PGA, and nearly snatched this year’s PGA from under the nose of Hannah Green. Inbee Park just needs this title to complete the current five-major set. Ko Jin-young, she of a swing so graceful she makes Freddie Couples look like Jim Furyk, won this year’s ANA. Shanshan Feng won the 2012 PGA. And Ariya Jutanugarn has both US and British Opens on her resume. In conclusion: it’s on! A bit later than anticipated, perhaps, but on.
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